NEWS

Follow recycling rules or lose your bin: Polk officials want better compliance, education

Dustin Wyatt
The Ledger

In the coming months, Polk County is expected to ink a new recycling contract with a third-party processing company.

While the agreement isn't expected to be finalized until March, at least one thing is already clear at this point: Residents will continue to be asked going forward to not put glass and certain plastics in their recycling bin, reinforcing a policy the county adopted in 2017. 

A  Republic Services Recycling Center employee sorts recyclables in the Material Recovery Facility on Maine Street in Lakeland Fl. Monday November 15  2021.  
ERNST PETERS/ THE LEDGER

What could change in the next contract? At a commission workshop Friday, county officials proposed some tweaks aimed at improving compliance and education.

On the enforcement side: Residents could be stripped of their recycling container if they habitually put the wrong materials inside it. 

Previous report for subscribers:Four years after 'confusing' change to recycling, Polk leaders want to keep it in place

On the education side: The county is considering utilizing artificial intelligence technology from a new business called Lid Vizion founded by a University of Miami graduate.

If approved at a not-yet-known cost, residents will be able to scan trash from their homes with their cell phones using a QR code and learn instantly if the material is recyclable.

The start of 2022 is expected to be busy for Polk County regarding waste management issues. 

Not only is the recycling contract on the table for March, Commissioner Neil Combee said Friday that he wants to terminate the county's contract with FCC Environmental, one of the companies that collects curbside trash from residents. 

Read about the issue:Commissioners fed up with trash collection contractor

That could be on an agenda for the first meeting in January. 

Combee said he plans to come to that meeting armed with complaints he's gotten from residents this year about missed collections. 

"I think we need to move to terminate FCC and replace them with somebody else," he said. "We have almost a total collapse."

The county is under contract with FCC through 2024.

The Ledger has requested information on the financial impact, if any, terminating FCC's contract early would have on the county. The information, however, was not provided as of Monday afternoon.

Combee, meanwhile, said he expected to get those details at the January meeting.

The county currently contracts with Waste Management for its recycling processing. 

Recycling changes 

Glass and certain plastic materials, such as soda and water bottles, have little market value and actually devalue the rest of the recycling load when mixed with other materials — a national problem known as contamination. 

To curb contamination locally, the county in 2017 changed its policy to focus on the recycling of cardboard, plastic milk jugs and paper — products that are more likely to sell to manufacturers for re-use purposes.

The new direction is also intended to increase county recycling revenue since glass, a heavier material, costs more to haul away than it's worth. 

Most of the plastic and glass residents put in their recycling bin wind up in the landfill anyway. A recent report by the Florida DEP found that only 9% of collected glass was recycled in Polk County in 2020. Plastic bottles: 11%.

County officials believe its policy makes sense environmentally and fiscally.

"We harvest materials that have the greatest potential to be reintroduced into the manufacturing process," Ana Wood, the county's waste management director, said at Friday's meeting. "We can collect anything and everything, but at the end of the day, if we don't have a willing buyer, those materials go into somebody else's landfill."

In other news:Polk Commission approves $3.2 million purchase of five new firetrucks

Waste Management currently takes materials collected in Polk that can't be recycled to a landfill in Manatee County. 

The change, however, has confused some residents - especially since municipalities within Polk, such as Lakeland, accept glass and plastic bottles in its recycling. 

The county wants to improve education and get better compliance, but it doesn't want to go as far as issuing citations to those who break the rules. 

"We don't want to be punitive," Wood said. "We will not be fining people." 

Under the current system, if contamination is visible to the driver from the recycling truck, the cart is tagged notifying the resident the reason for non-service. Tags are entered into the system and Waste & Recycling mails a letter to the resident with the correct program recycling information, Wood said. 

Under a change proposed by Wood at the workshop Friday, a resident could lose their recycling bin altogether if they repeatedly violate the county rules. 

She also presented an idea that would make it easier for the trash collector to see what they're picking up from households: Give residents a clear recycling cart. 

Did you know:Risking litigation, Polk County Commissioners approve new invocation policy

Not only would this make it easy for the trash collector to spot non-complying bins upon pickup, but it will also allow residents to hold their neighbors accountable, Wood said. 

"This will give people in neighborhoods some pressure," Wood said. "We have people in neighborhoods who love recycling and they are going to see a whole bunch of stuff that doesn't belong in there."

QR Code program

Shawn Wilborne is the founder of Lid Vizion, which formed in 2019. He was invited to attend the commission workshop Friday to talk about his company and how it could help educate Polk residents about what they should and shouldn't put in the recycling bin. 

Shawn Wilborne, co-founder of Lid Vizion LLC.

"This is just another tool in a citizen's bag to help with the public education component," County Manager Bill Beasley said. 

The business, if the county enlists its services, would distribute a QR code to each resident. It would work in a similar fashion to the codes that can be found at some restaurants, which patrons can scan with a cell phone to pull up the menu.

Scanning this code from Lid Vizion pulls up the technology that will allow residents to capture a video of the trash they plan to recycle. The program will tell the user instantly if they should recycle it or toss it. 

County officials say no other county in the country has introduced this service to its residents. 

"You scan the QR code, scan the item, get a response," Wilborne told the commission. "The big component here is that we can recognize a myriad materials. The honest fact  is that not all materials are recyclable, not all materials have high value. You want to focus on what materials will actually be turned into something on the back end." 

A South Carolina native, Dustin covers Polk County government and county-wide issues.  He can be reached at dwyatt@gannett.com or on Twitter @LLDustin_Wyatt.