At the Reuter Recycling Facility in Pembroke Pines, a large plant that smells vaguely of garbage, Waste Management gathers recyclable material from all over Miami-Dade, Broward, and Monroe counties.
Within what's called the "tipping room," recycling trucks that pick up the contents of residents' blue bins from all across South Florida dump several metric tons onto the ground to be sorted by machines and staff, and ultimately packed into tight, thousand-pound bales that will be sold to materials companies across the continent. (Though other countries purchase recyclables from the U.S., Waste Management, the largest waste-disposal company in the nation, came to an agreement with Greenpeace USA to sell its plastic inside North America and nowhere else.)
Nonetheless, according to the most recent data from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Miami-Dade's recycling rate has taken a nosedive, plummeting from 46 percent in 2012 to 19 percent today. It turns out much of the material brought in isn't recycled because residents aren't following guidelines that cover what can be recycled or they're contaminating their recyclables with food waste, which can render an entire bin unusable.
That said, Waste Management community outreach representative Shiraz Kashar tells New Times that much of what comes in does get processed — eventually. During a recent tour of the facility, Kashir and others at Waste Management shared six recycling lessons with New Times that are likely surprise even the most green-minded garbage tosser.
The Recycling Symbol Doesn't Mean Something Can Be Recycled
Everyone recognizes the ubiquitous three arrow symbol that has been used in marketing campaigns and branding to denote that something is recyclable or made with recycled material. But did you know that that's not the actual meaning of the symbol?