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With two Miami-Dade recycling contracts expiring March 31 and a new incinerator a burning issue, a county committee today (1/12) is to look at a resolution to make solid waste management a regional consideration.
Commissioner René Garcia wants to collaborate with the South Florida Regional Planning Council to take far broader aim at refuse.
The resolution targets new technologies and best approaches to the mounting waste problem, while developing strategies “to increase recycling to achieve a goal of 100%, but at a minimum the State of Florida required 75%.”
As the recycling contracts expire, “no cancellation of curbside recycling service has been considered” for Miami-Dade, Gayle Love, senior division director of the solid waste management department, told Miami Today in November. She said Miami-Dade won’t follow the cutback and cancellation road other communities nationwide have traveled.
The county’s waste management department has worked with the Strategic Procurement Department to “develop RFPs (requests for proposal) for both contracts,” she added. The collection RFP was still being worked on by the Strategic Procurement Department, she said then.
Sen. Garcia’s resolution seeks recycling goals using both sustainable materials management and waste diversion concepts. It also seeks recycling materials market development.
China once paid well for materials that it could reprocess, but several years ago it stopped accepting recyclables, throwing the profitable waste market onto the scrap heap as recycling companies said they couldn’t depend on selling used plastic and paper at prices that covered their processing costs.
That turned former government recycling profits into losses.
A February report by Mayor Daniella Levine Cava noted that “across the county, jurisdictions have sought to redesign their programs in order to continue operations.” The report said Deerfield Beach, Lake Worth and Sunrise altered their recycling programs to control costs.
As a remedy, Mr. Garcia’s legislation looks to local government recycling assistance and new avenues to repurpose recycled materials. His measure also seeks to “ensure the ability to offset the cost of energy at county facilities.”
Finally, the measure aims to pinpoint state or federal legislation that would help the county battle the solid waste crunch.
If the legislation passes in the Infrastructure, Operations and Innovations Committee this week and then the full commission Feb. 7, it would require the administration to report on all the issues and solutions within 180 days.
That might come too late to handle the immediate issues of recycling contacts for both collection and disposal but might help with a new incineration plant. Commissioners in October approved a contract extension for the Covanta plant, the county’s resources recovery facility in Doral, providing time to build a new waste-to-energy plant next door without affecting solid waste services.
But ex-Doral mayor and now county Commissioner Juan Carlos Bermudez said he will ask to reconsider sites for the waste-to-energy facility. “It is my opinion that there is a possibility of potentially finding a resolution, whether it’s through a public-private partnership with the county or in another fashion, where we may be able to find other sites,” he said one day prior to the October vote.
Said Mayor Levine Cava, “It’s an extension until we come up with a long-term plan.”