Lee County has been ranked second among Florida\u2019s 67 counties for recycling rates by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP). Only Palm Beach County, with nearly double the population of Lee, is ranked ahead.<\/p>\n
In 2025, Lee County residents and businesses recycled enough material to fill 1,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools.<\/p>\n
Lee County received credit for recycling more than 2.2 million tons of the 3 million tons of total waste generated last year according to FDEP. This brings the county\u2019s adjusted rate to 87 percent, which is a nine-point increase from its 78 percent rate in 2024 and 12 points clear of the state\u2019s recycling goal of 75 percent.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven if it was just a couple of points, that would\u2019ve been great \u2026 to place second for recycling rate is great,\u201d Kenny Howell, communications specialist for Lee County Solid Waste, said. \u201cWe look for each year to keep increasing that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lee County earns FDEP recycling credits for items such as curbside recycling by residents as well as businesses recycling materials such as cardboard, yard waste, scrap metal and construction and demolition debris.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have become a really recycling centric household,\u201d Brian Esco of Lehigh Acres said. \u201cWe try to be conscientious about having the least amount of impact on the environment around us that we can.\u201d<\/p>\n
Howell says Lee County\u2019s focus on recycling education is responsible for the nine-point recycling rate increase.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of people don\u2019t know what is recyclable and what is not,\u201d Howell said. \u201cThe thing with Lee County too is we have so many new residents coming in, so where they lived before they might be able to recycle something whereas here they can\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Recycle Coach app allows residents to learn how to properly dispose of different waste materials. Users can find out if an item is recyclable by using the app to take a picture.<\/p>\n
Howell suggests residents place items in the trash if they have doubts whether an item can be recycled.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe call that wishcycling,\u201d Howell said.<\/p>\n
Plastic bags, single-use batteries and shaving cream cans are some items that many people think are recyclable, but actually aren\u2019t.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou might have a shaving cream can and you\u2019re not sure if it\u2019s recyclable, but you\u2019re just hoping that it is going to be recycled. So we\u2019d rather you throw that in your trash,\u201d Howell added.<\/p>\n
\u201cSomeone in good conscience who was trying to recycle, now everything that they recycled is now no longer valuable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Non-recyclable items go to Lee County\u2019s Waste-to-Energy plant in Buckingham. This is where the items are burned to produce electricity instead of ending up at a landfill, a process the County also receives recycling credit for.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do enough to power 30,000 homes, and it also powers our whole campus,\u201d Howell said. \u201cSo if it doesn\u2019t get recycled, it will end up at our Waste-to-Energy plant and turned into renewable energy.\u201d<\/p>\n
For more information about recycling, visit www.leegov.com\/solidwaste<\/a>.<\/p>\n Support provided by the Franklin R. Edwards Memorial Fellowship. WGCU is your trusted source for news and information in Southwest Florida. We are a nonprofit public service, and your support is more critical than ever. Keep public media strong and donate <\/a>now. Thank you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lee County has been ranked second among Florida\u2019s 67 counties for recycling rates by the Florida Department of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":364589,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210],"class_list":["post-364588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364588\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/364589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}