Solid Waste Management makes it easy for all of us to be eco-friendly

People around the globe celebrate Earth Day to raise awareness of the impact of pollution on the environment and people. Solid Waste Management recognizes that protecting our environment on Earth Day and every day will make our world better for future generations of Miami-Dade residents to come. There's a lot of work to do, and we are all in this together. Consider taking these small steps to impact our environment in a big way.

• Curbside Recycling/Recycle Right
  Our curbside recycling program has helped keep nearly 60,000 tons of recyclable materials out of our landfills each year. When our residents recycle right the recycled materials are made into new items that others can enjoy. 
• Home Chemical Collection Program and ChemAgain
  Sometimes we need to use chemical products in our homes which require proper disposal. Proper disposal of this waste helps protect our fragile South Florida environment. We offer free and safe disposal for motor oil, household paints, pesticides, batteries, fluorescent bulbs and the like.  By taking them to one of our two permanent Home Chemical Collection Centers many of these items can be reused and will become available free of charge on a first-come, first-served basis to other Miami-Dade residents, as part of the ChemAgain program.
• Nothing Goes to Waste
  Contrary to popular belief most of the waste in Miami-Dade County doesn’t go to a landfill. Customers contribute to sustainable energy production every day by simply taking their garbage to the curb or scheduling a bulky waste pickup. The majority of the garbage and waste collected is processed at a waste-to-energy plant. Thanks to the state-of-the-art Resources Recovery Facility nothing goes to waste. A nice by-product of the waste-to-energy plant is that we generate enough electricity to power the facility itself plus another 35,000 homes, 20,000 tons of ferrous metal and 6,000 tons of non-ferrous metal are removed from the waste stream and recycled each year, and we’re exploring the use of the ash that remains from incineration, to help in the manufacturing of cement.
• Back to Nature
  We’ve converted landfills and an active disposal facility into acres of both coastal and freshwater wetlands. We have built rainwater retention ponds and planted mangroves and other native plants that support these wetland ecosystems. These ecosystems in turn attract other native plants and a variety of animal species such as ducks, coots, alligators and marsh rabbits that now call these wetlands home.