Lee, Charlotte Counties Lead Florida in Recycling Rates

SEATTLE (Waste Advantage): Lee County moved up from the No. 4 spot in 2017, when it had a 74% recycling rate. It was a goal for Lee County’s Solid Waste department to move to the top spot the following year – which Lee County Solid Waste Communications Specialist Molly Schweers said they achieved through more thorough reporting of recyclable statistics. “We were more aggressive about finding material that was being recycled but not reported,” Schweers said.

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection set a goal to reach a 75% recycling rate across the board by 2020, which is a measure of how much waste each county recycled divided by their total waste. But for now, Lee and Charlotte counties are the only two counties to exceed that goal – recycling rates sit in single digits across 10 counties, including Glades County’s 1% recycling rate. Of Florida’s 67 counties, 16 have a recycling rate that exceeds 50%.

Florida’s combined recycling rate currently sits at 49%. Lee and Charlotte counties were the only two to reach the state’s goal for 2020.  Collier and Hendry counties recycling rates landed at 64% and 36% — tied for eight and 29th in the state, respectively.

When totaled together, construction debris makes up a third of the state’s waste streams, according to Schweers. “The initiative was working more closely with business partners to encourage them to give us the data. That there wasn’t any threat to them, there was no downside to reporting,” Schweers said. “Just building that relationship with the business community, that was the initiative, really.”

Courtesy: https://www.wasteadvantage.com