Revamped Curbside Recycling Program in Miami-Dade County!

So, this post was originally going to be about how Whole Foods now accepts #5 plastics for recycling inside their stores, and how this was such fantastic news because the Miami-Dade County curbside recycling program is, well, TERRIBLE! And then, when I went to the solid waste management website for the Miami curbside recycling program, lo and behold, up popped the news that the curbside recycling program in Miami has been majorly revamped.

City of Miami Solid Waste Management is now going to provide 65-gallon wheeled recycling bins, all items can be mixed together in the bins--this is called single-stream recycling--,and curbside recycling pickup in Miami-Dade will be every other week rather than weekly.

Most importantly, the Miami curbside recycling program is now going to accept SO much more than it previously did--before, we could recycle plastics 1 & 2, aluminum and steel, some glass, and newspaper. Now, they will accept a wide variety of paper, including office paper, magazines, and mail, flattened boxes like cereal boxes and corrugated cardboard, and a much wider spectrum of plastics--all numbers 1 through 7. Wow! A complete list of items eligible for curbside recycling in Miami-Dade county with the new program can be found here.

As a mom, this means you will now be able to recycle all of the following items that you weren't able to before through the Miami-Dade county curbside recycling program: juice boxes, plastic yogurt containers, single serve applesauce containers, the cardboard boxes that popular "kid foods" are packaged in (granola bars, crackers, cookies, cereal, oatmeal), toy packaging, diaper boxes, and paper used for arts and crafts.

Remember, you'll still need to take your plastic grocery bags back to the store to recycle.

The Miami-Dade county website says that the new bins and new program will be rolling out over the next few weeks, and that in the meantime, Miami residents should stick to their usual curbside recycling program rules.

I'm excited about this, because I've always been surprised that Miami curbside recycling was so lame--I used to live in the small town of Bloomington, Indiana, and their curbside program was fantastic. They also further encouraged people to recycle by requiring a $1 tag to be placed on every can or bag of trash set out for pickup--but recycling was no charge. So theoretically, you would recycle as much as you possibly could from the list to avoid having to pay for garbage tags.

Anyway, FYI in the meantime, Whole Foods IS now accepting #5 plastic (like yogurt containers) at bins inside their stores. I guess if you haven't gotten your new recycling containers from city of Miami yet ( I haven't), you'll need to recycle #5 plastic this way for now.

Happy curbside recycling, city of Miami!