Florida County Ends Curbside Recycling Due to Rising Costs, Contamination

Starting Oct. 1, Polk County, Fla. is discontinuing its curbside recycling collection due to rising costs.

Roughly 140,000 households will lose access to their curbside recycling program in a few weeks as, according to Solid Waste officials, the recycling process costs twice as much due to an overseas market collapse. Ending the curbside recycling program will save the county $5.5 million annually. Officials also cite contamination as a continued issue during collection.

“If you deliver materials that have a high degree of contamination to a processor, that processor may and will reject your load, so that was a problem that plagued the collection system,” said Dale Henderson, Director of Polk County's Solid Waste Division.

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