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State Recycling Goal

State goal is to recycle or compost 75 percent of waste by 2020

By BRIAN HUGHES / News Bulletin
Published: Wednesday, April 17, 2013 

CRESTVIEW — For north Okaloosa County, recycling waste helps the environment and the economy, according to waste managers.

Saving money
“Small businesses say, ‘How can you save me money?'” Waste Management District Manager Domenica Farmer said April 10 during the Crestview Area Chamber of Commerce Government Issues Committee meeting.

The answer is simple: recycle.

It costs $20 per ton to recycle, versus $50 per ton to put everything in the trash, Farmer said. Maintaining a landfill costs three or four times as much as single-stream recycling, she said.

“A little bit of effort on their part, and education of employees,” can pull many recyclables from the waste stream, reducing the frequency and cost of emptying businesses’ trash bins, Farmer said. Continue reading “State Recycling Goal”

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FDEP Recognizes Alachua County

A2011. The rate is defined as the quantity of solid waste that is recycled instead of being stored at a landfill.

Alachua County Waste Alternatives Manager Partick Irby said much of the county’s success is due to the mandatory commercial recycling ordinance implemented in 2001. The ordinance requires all commercial generators to separate designated recycling materials and make them available for recycling.

“With the two larger entities within the county having that ordinance, that helps out,” Irby said. “We also have a very robust curbside recycling program.”

Residents participating in the program place bottles and cans in blue bins and paper and cardboard in orange bins. Materials picked up from the curb are then brought to SP Fiber Technologies and sorted into containers and fibers.

Alachua County collected 410,380 tons of municipal solid waste and recycled 205,070 tons, according to the Solid Waste Management in Florida 2011 Annual Report. The state collected 26,486,286 tons of municipal solid waster and recycled just 30 percent.

The Florida Legislature hopes to attain a 75 percent statewide recycling rate by 2020. The Department of Environmental Protection submitted a comprehensive program plan in 2010 to achieve this goal.

According to the plan, recycling will be enhanced “in an economically responsible way through heightened public awareness, state leadership, development and expansion of recycling markets, and more investments throughout the local government and commercial sectors.”

“We are still a long way away from our goal,” Irby said, “so every little bit counts.”

Alachua County’s recycling rate is five percentage points higher than neighboring Marion County.  The 2012 numbers will be revealed in the next couple of months.

 

Posted by:  Joe Lancos on April 2, 2013

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Communities Recycling Campaign Signs

Many Communities Recycling, Repurposing Old Campaign Signs

Reuse of or recycling campaign signs is an excellent way to unwind after an election, save space in a landfill and helping the environment.

The best way to handle the signs is to reuse them. However most are outdated and should be recycled. Communities across the country are attempting to make that easy for residents.

However, the signs are generally made of two different grades of plastic—corrugated and polyethylene, i.e. poly bags. The first is a plastic form of cardboard; the second is a thin film. While both are recyclable, typical municipal materials recovery facilities do not recycle them.

Plastic bags cause complications at the single stream recycling sorting facility, according to a Baltimore County, Md., fact sheet. Specifically, malfunctions can occur when plastic bags get wrapped around the equipment.

Some communities in Florida are accepting corrugated signs.  Leon County will reuse the signs to shore up the bottom of rusted out recycling containers. How fitting.

Contributed to:  www.gather.com by Andy Arnold

Date:  November 08, 2012

Give us a call to collect campaigns signs and other paraphernalia.  Let’s make this a win-win situation!

954-572-7534

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Broward County Recycling Rate Up 13%

Recycling in Broward County is up 13 percent over 2011, thanks to the increased efforts of residents. The County is now on its way toward meeting Florida’s 75 percent recycling goal as residents recycle as much as they can of paper, cardboard, plastic bottles, metal and glass containers.

 

Environmental benefits of recycling include energy savings, a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions linked to climate change, and sustainability of resources.

“We worked together with Broward County’s municipalities to promote recycling and its benefits to our residents,” said Odette Reza-Brown, public education program manager for Solid Waste and Recycling Services. “We are very excited about the residents’ positive response to the County’s and cities’ recycling initiatives.” Continue reading “Broward County Recycling Rate Up 13%”

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Students dig Recycling at FSDB


Students at the Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind caught the recycling bug during the recently completed school year. Students reported that they didn’t want to throw anything out that can be recycled because the landfills are becoming overloaded with valuable paper, plastics and metals.

The blind department high school, in cooperation with FSDB’s Science Curriculum Team, hosted their first-ever Recycle Day. Two “single stream” recycling trucks from Republic Services, Jacksonville came to the school. In single stream recycling, no sorting of wastes into plastics, paper, aluminum, etc. is required. Continue reading “Students dig Recycling at FSDB”

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Runaway Country fans recycled 10,000 pounds of aluminum, plastic, paperFans watch Randy Travis from rented lifeguard chairs Sunday at the
2012 Runaway Country Space Coast Music Festival at
Wickham Park, in Melbourne. Courtesy of FLORIDA TODAY.

The total amounted to a 50 percent recycling rate, a number that Waste Management and KBB officials say was lowered because of the amount of garbage thrown away by vendors.

In fact, KBB executive director Tony Sasso said he saw a number of concert-goers take their recyclables out of garbage cans when they saw one of the 100 recycling carts that were placed throughout Wickham Park.

Roughly 160 KBB volunteers helped keep the garbage and recycling carts empty and picked up trash left on the ground each morning.

The mix of recyclable material was 40 percent aluminum, 30 percent plastic and 3 percent paper and cardboard. Waste Management estimated the resources saved by the weekend recycling to include 32 mature trees, 25 cubic yards of landfill airspace, 42,091 kilowatts of electricity and 10,500 gallons of water.

Source:  Florida Today