BROWARD COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 South Florida is in the grips of a growing solid waste crisis, with landfills quickly filling up and recycling falling way short.<\/p>\n
Just weeks after Miami-Dade unveiled its zero waste master plan, Broward has approved a master plan of its own.<\/p>\n
After 10 years of planning and pitching, the Broward Solid Waste Authority finally has something to celebrate.<\/p>\n
Its solid waste master plan has won approval from a supermajority of cities and is moving forward, with the potential to reshape recycling and waste reduction across the county.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were able to reach the 80% threshold,\u201d said Mike Ryan, chair of the Solid Waste Authority governing board. \u201cWe need to reduce, reuse and recycle. And it\u2019s not just for the environment, landfill. It\u2019s good economics.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Solid Waste Authority was formed in 2023 but had been meeting and strategizing for the past 10 years, trying to get to this exact point: a standardized approach to recycling and composting with an ambitious goal of diverting at least 60% of its waste from landfills in a way cities can afford.<\/p>\n
\u201cRight now, this is not economically viable, where every city\u2019s been on their own,\u201d Ryan said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re generating 5 million tons of trash a year. Much of that has value and can be extracted. Much of that should not be going to the landfill or waste of energy. And so that\u2019s our job now, to break these waste streams up and create long-term contracts to achieve our goals,\u201d Ryan said.<\/p>\n
So now the hard work really begins, securing and reviewing proposals in the next few months that can be enacted countywide at the best price.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a pretty aggressive timeline, but we hope by the end of 2027 that we will be able to have created a system that will last for the next 25 to 40 years,\u201d Ryan said.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany cities stopped recycling because it just didn\u2019t feel that it was being done or could be done. And that\u2019s costing them more in the long run. So for us, how we look at this is not just about what is it going to cost. It\u2019s also, what did we ultimately save?\u201d Ryan said.<\/p>\n
Another cornerstone of the master plan is education. The Solid Waste Authority is working with the county on a K-12 curriculum aimed at teaching students better waste reduction habits from an early age.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are going to start in our schools so that when we are educating our students they will be bringing the message home and then that message will get out in a broader, have a broader outreach,\u201d said Maura Bulman, a Broward County School Board member.<\/p>\n
The long-term goal is to have active recycling and composting in every county school, like here at Driftwood Middle School in Hollywood.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe recycle team, what we do is we try to recycle so it reduces the trash in the landfills, lowers pollution, lowers greenhouse gases, and we just try to make the environment safer for our life and encourage others to do the same,\u201d said Tanner, a member of the Driftwood Middle School recycle team.<\/p>\n
\u201cBroward is just one teensy tiny part of what makes up everything that gets polluted. So if we help and other people see us helping, they should help too,\u201d said Emory, another member of the Driftwood Middle School recycle team.<\/p>\n
Linda Gancitano, a Driftwood Middle School happiness studies teacher, said the students can help spread the message at home.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe kids can recycle, they can educate, they can bring it home, now they can start. It just has a ripple effect of going home. Educate them here, let them take it home, right? And then we\u2019re going to see the impact all the way across the district,\u201d Gancitano said.<\/p>\n
The School Board understands just how critical it is for the county to get this right and the integral role schools will play in making the new master plan a success.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the most important thing we can be doing,\u201d Bulman said. \u201cTo have our students and the young people engaged and having the buy-in now and understanding how important it is for their future is amazing for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the county, the school partnership is essential because ultimately, making this master plan work will take all of Broward working together.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis has been an entire team effort, and it\u2019s a model of what we can do as cities when we work together with the county and industry and environmentalists to achieve the goals that we have to achieve,\u201d Ryan said.<\/p>\n
The Solid Waste Authority has an aggressive timeline, hoping to have a countywide standardized system in action by the end of 2027 that they hope will last for the next 25 to 40 years.<\/p>\n
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