Do recyclables in South Florida actually get recycled or end up in a landfill? Tracking Miami-Dade’s recycling journey

Another look at recycling here in South Florida specifically where does this stuff in fact go We ve already looked at Broward Now we are focusing on Miami-Dade County 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 certainly being recycled Investigates required 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 presented 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 certain 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 longed to find out why So it commissioned this scrutiny which identified contamination is a big issue Operators announced 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 of recyclable material is contaminated something city personnel say they deal with every day Russell Ketchem Contamination is by far the killer to a recycling initiative 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 indeed working on app-based tools to help residents identify what can and cannot be recycled Heather Walker News CONTACT INVESTIGATES - -CLUE - -CLUE Investigates wsvn com