A.G. Gancarski
A Northeast Florida city is crediting looking at people’s curbside offerings with a 23% reduction in so-called “contamination” in recyclables.
Jacksonville leaders announced that the levels of contamination went down in the wake of an audit that began in April 2023 in the latter days of the Lenny Curry administration.
“This investment is another example of the beverage industry’s steadfast commitment to improving recycling in Jacksonville and throughout Florida,” said Elizabeth DeWitt, President and CEO of the Florida Beverage Association.
“When we reduce contamination in the recycling stream, more materials like our bottles and cans can be remade into new products as intended. The success in Jacksonville provides a road map for how communities and business can work together to improve the effectiveness of recycling programs.”
That audit included people taking a look in people’s recycling cans to see if they had slid any nonpermitted items into the mix.
“The City of Jacksonville has struggled for many years to find workable solutions that include our residents in the process without raising taxes or fees. The collaboration with the community has proven instrumental in achieving these remarkable results,” said City Council President Ron Salem.
Interestingly, the recycling issue was brought up in Salem’s re-election campaign as a negative by a Democratic challenger in the 2023 election cycle.
Joshua Hicks, now the affordable housing director for the Donna Deegan administration, released campaign material spotlighting what he claimed was Salem’s role in the recycling crisis, amid new reporting about inspections of people’s recycling bins.
“After we all paid a waste management tax and didn’t receive the corresponding city services for 6+ months, my opponent has a big idea to clean up the mess that he created,” Hicks wrote donors in late 2022 of then-nascent plans to spend ~$560,000 on reviews of people’s recycling.
Hicks’ high dudgeon came after the Curry administration had failed in providing the service, unable to hire people during the pandemic to do the job amid labor shortages.
Curry’s administration took the unprecedented step in 2021 of pausing curbside collections, urging locals to take the materials and drop them off at city parks, a move that had calamitous results.
Back then, Mayor Curry chided people for incorrect sorting of materials. He also urged people not to dump garbage on the steps of City Hall out of “frustration,” noting that is, in fact, illegal.
