Plastic Free 305

To be eligible for Plastic Free 305, participants must eliminate or replace with a more sustainable item* the following single-use plastic (including Styrofoam) products:

• Cups
• Cutlery
• Drinking bottles and caps
• Food wrappers
• Grocery bags
• Lids
• Produce bags 
• Ramekins/sauce containers
• Stirrers
• Straws
• Take-out containers
• Trays

Plastic Free 305 is designed as a three-tier recognition program based upon the progressive level of single-use plastic elimination: 

• Tier One: Business or organization pledges to remove one or more eligible single-use plastic products* during the first calendar year of enrollment or business or organization has already removed one single-use plastic
• Tier Two: Business or organization has removed two or more single-use plastic products*
• Tier Three: Business or organization is 100% single-use plastics-free

* Excluding single-use plastics currently prohibited by local ordinance.

Check if your business or organization operates within a city that currently restricts certain single-use plastics items such as straws or plastic bags.

Have you already eliminated one or more of the eligible single-use plastic products from your establishment (not including items already prohibited by your city)? Apply now and submit your Plastic Free 305 application for review. Get help getting started with single-use plastic reduction and elimination:

• STEP 1 - Determine how much single-use plastic you consume by conducting a plastic use audit. Use the Plastic Use Audit to inventory how many of the eligible single-use items your business or organization purchases in an average day, week or month.

• STEP 2 - Determine which single-use plastics you can eliminate from your business through reuse strategies or replacement with sustainable alternatives. Miami-Dade County recommends choosing reuse-and-refill strategies using reusable materials. If reuse strategies are not practical, select more sustainable replacement items that are derived from natural products such as bamboo, sugarcane and other highly biodegradable products. Visit our Business Resource Section for reuse strategies and sustainable alternatives.

• STEP 3 - Ready to eliminate single-use plastics? Apply now to detail your pledge to remove one or more of the eligible items from your business and submit your Plastic Free 305 application for review.

While plastics, including Styrofoam, have many valuable uses, our society has become accustomed to single-use or disposable plastics, with severe environmental consequences. Almost half of all plastic manufactured is designed to be used only once and then thrown away, and less than 10 percent of plastic is recycled, with the rest ending up in our landfills and environment.

Plastic waste generated in coastal regions like Miami-Dade County is most at risk of entering our oceans, and each year 11 million metric tons of plastic waste ends up in our bays, on our beaches and in the sea. Even plastic discarded inland can find its way to the sea, whether blown by wind, swept into storm drains connected to ocean outfalls or carried to the bay by our canal system.

Once in the ocean, plastic waste is difficult, if not impossible to remove. Further, plastic does not “break down” in the environment, but it does break up. Sunlight, wind and wave action break plastic waste into small non-biodegradable particles called microplastics, which spread throughout the water column and wreak havoc on the marine food chain.

Plastic waste is now so pervasive in our environment that it can be detected in our food chain, our water supply and even in the air we breathe. You don’t have to look far to see the unsightly impacts from plastic waste littering our environment. The County’s Baynanza Biscayne Bay Cleanup Day has been removing thousands of pounds of plastic waste from our shorelines every year since 1982.

The solution is to prevent plastic from entering our waters in the first place. You can be a part of the solution by joining Plastic Free 305.  

Bioplastics, or “biodegradable” or “compostable” plastics, are products made from natural renewable plant-based substances instead of fossil fuels (which is why most bioplastics bear an “eco-friendly” leaf on the product).

However, most bioplastics don’t fully break down in home composts, landfills or in the environment, and many bioplastics contain significant amounts conventional plastic. Further, most bioplastics require commercial composting facilities employing controlled conditions to process and break down the bioplastics correctly, and at this time there are no commercial bioplastic processors in Miami-Dade County.

Bioplastics can also contaminate municipal recycling waste streams when people unknowingly add them to their recycling, and when illegally discarded in the environment they act just like conventional plastics and can break down into harmful microplastics.

Miami-Dade County recommends that for now we treat bioplastics no differently than plastic. For more information on bioplastics in our environment, visit our Business Resource Partner.

Regarding plastic recycling, currently less than 10% of all plastic produced is recycled. Many plastic products degrade each time they’re recycled and reprocessed — unlike metal or glass, which can be perpetually recycled — making plastics progressively less valuable. In Miami-Dade County, the only plastics that are recycled are bottled-shaped plastics, which means that all other plastics, including plastic bags, utensils and straws are headed straight for the landfill, or worse, our environment, despite being put inside the recycling bins.

Would you like to calculate your potential cost savings and learn where you can eliminate single-use products? Visit Debris Free Oceans to learn more.