Do recyclables in South Florida actually get recycled or end up in a landfill? Tracking Miami-Dade’s recycling journey – WSVN 7News | Miami News, Weather, Sports
Another look at recycling here in South Florida, specifically where does this stuff actually go? We’ve already looked at Broward. Now, we are focusing on Miami-Dade County. 7’s Heather Walker investigates.
The trucks drive through our neighborhoods picking up items for recycling.
Angela Munez: “Plastics, cans and any paper goods, which would be like pizza boxes or anything else that goes into that blue huge bin I have at my house.”
But are those things actually being recycled? 7Investigates wanted to find out.
We put an AirTag on a plastic milk bottle in Coconut Grove. Another AirTag on a metal can in Country Walk. A third one on a soda can in North Miami and a fourth on a plastic bottle at Miami International Airport.
A City of Miami recycling truck picked up the milk bottle.
Four days later, it pinged at the Miami-Dade County central transfer station.
The plastic bottle thrown away at MIA showed up a day later at the Miami-Dade County west transfer station.
Waste taken to both of these transfer stations goes to a landfill and is not recycled.
The AirTag on the metal can of dog food in Country Walk and the one on the soda can we recycled in North Miami Beach stopped transmitting after being picked up.
They might have been smashed in the truck so we have no way of knowing if these items were recycled or not.
But two of our four items were not recycled and that frustrates some residents
Jacob Fleishman: “We’re paying to recycle. So might as well make sure it happens.”
But the reality is a lot of our recyclables end up in this long line of trucks at landfills
Kari: “Very mad, very upset. We’ve been recycling for a long time.”
The Florida Department of Environmental Protection wanted to find out why. So it commissioned this study, which found contamination is a big issue
Operators said “they could process more if incoming materials were cleaner.”
Dr. Yalan Liu: “A lot of them find diapers and all kinds of stuff in their recycling.”
Researcher Dr. Yalan Liu says as much as 50% of recyclable material is contaminated, something city officials say they deal with every day.
Russell Ketchem: “Contamination is by far the killer to a recycling program or to your commodity that you’re trying to recycle.”
So what can we do?
Start at home. Make sure your recyclable items are clean, so the load doesn’t get rejected and sent to a landfill.
Miami-Dade County is actually working on app-based tools to help residents identify what can and cannot be recycled.
Heather Walker, 7News.
CONTACT 7 INVESTIGATES:
305-627-CLUE
954-921-CLUE
[email protected]
Copyright 2025 Sunbeam Television Corp. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
