Dive Brief:
- Residents in St. Johns County, FL have recently ditched their 18-gallon recycling bins for new 95-gallon containers, marking the start of a program that will boost recycling rates county-wide.
- Florida legislature has set a 75% recycle rate goal for the state, which it hopes to reach by the year 2020. Right now, St. Johns County's recycling rate is between 16% and 20%, but county officials are hopeful that the new bins will increase the rate.
- The county has 200,000 in population, with about 75,000 homes paying for solid-waste services.
Dive Insight:
St. Johns County had previously conducted public outreach to improve recycling efforts, and has already implemented single stream recycling within the county. The new bins will allow for easier recycling of materials and much more space for the recyclable waste.
One of the challenges associated with the bigger bins is the increased opportunity for "pollution," or items placed into the bins that shouldn't be there. However, Republic Services and Advanced Disposal — both of which serve the county for waste disposal — drop the recyclable materials at local materials recovery facilities where the product is sorted through and recycled properly.