Miami-Dade’s recycling program in jeopardy as commissioners punt on fee increase

Miami-Dade County could drop its recycling service in an effort to dodge a $36 yearly increase in trash fees in 2024.

Commissioner Kevin Cabrera asked fellow board members Tuesday to cancel the recycling contract immediately and save the county’s Solid Waste department $22 million rather than ask residents to pay more starting Oct. 1.

“If we were able to cancel the recycling contract today, we could not raise fees on our residents,” Cabrera said. With recycling costs for Miami-Dade higher than in past years, he urged the county to join other local governments in deciding recycling “doesn’t make sense” financially.

Commissioners opted to postpone the trash-fee and recycling decisions until September, when the board approves the 2024 budget.

Most commissioners who spoke said they weren’t ready to approve a fee increase that Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said is needed to avoid cuts in garbage services for about 300,000 households that rely on county trucks to pick up trash and recycling.

In a memo, Levine Cava said keeping the current $509 fee flat next year would leave a funding hole to be closed with service cuts. Those could include dropping one of two weekly garbage pickups and ending the county’s recycling service as Cabrera proposed.

READ MORE: Miami-Dade has its first $11 billion budget. Why a lower tax rate won’t cut spending

After the meeting, Levine Cava said she didn’t think Miami-Dade would make that drastic move. “I think we’re going to find a way to pay for collection services,” she said. “There are different options that include recycling.”

The impasse is the latest challenge for the county’s underfunded trash system in 2023. A February fire shut down the county’s Doral incinerator plant, idling a facility that burned about half of Miami-Dade’s garbage.

That led to a temporary shift to landfills in and out of Miami-Dade, an arrangement that won’t be enough for the county to keep up with the extra trash produced by a growing population. Mike Fernandez, Solid Waste director under the last two mayors, quit earlier this month and warned Miami-Dade would need to halt development next year if it didn’t find a way to dispose of more trash with the Doral plant down.

The fee increase wasn’t tied to the Doral fire, but a chronic issue in Miami-Dade of the garbage fees not covering expenses. Last year, Miami-Dade raised the fee by $25 a year but still had a deficit, which commissioners and Levine Cava closed using $40 million in federal COVID aid.

This year, there is another $40 million gap. The proposed fee increase generates only about $12 million, according to the Levine Cava memo. The remaining $28 million would be borrowed from Solid Waste reserves and paid back with future fee increases.

Miami-Dade mailed out advisories about the trash-fee vote, and several residents appeared with their notices to ask for relief.

“I’m a senior. My husband is a senior,” said Rose Ling, 67, a retiree who lives in West Kendall. With higher insurance costs, their Social Security payments can’t absorb even small fee increases, she said. “This is very impactful for us.”

Javier Balcells, 64, said the increase is double for him because of a garage apartment on his property that requires a second fee for trash service. “My son lives there,” he said. “He’s unemployed “

Oliver Gilbert, the commission chair, supported the fee increase and said it made no sense to deny more revenue is needed to maintain a basic service like picking up trash. Elected in 2020 after new term-limit rules forced veteran commissioners to leave office, Gilbert said the new board needed to do better.

“We’re kicking the same can down the same road,” he said. “Even though we all said we’d be different.”

This story was originally published July 18, 2023 at 6:04 PM.