House Bill 73, titled “Environmental Regulation,” was passed unanimously by the state legislature and signed by the Governor on June 18, 2020 and goes into effect on October 1, 2020. Section 1 of this bill specifies requirements for contracts between residential recycling collectors or recovered materials processing facilities and counties or municipalities for collecting, transporting, and processing residential recycling material and contaminated recyclable material.

The bill outlines what must be included in a contract between a local government and a residential recycling collector and between a local government and recovered materials. A key focus of the bill is to reduce the amount of contaminated recyclable material being collected and processed. However, with so many recycling programs using single-stream recycling, this change places the burden of addressing contaminated recyclable materials primarily on the local government. The full text of the bill can be found HERE. So, what can you do to reduce contamination and your reject rate?

• Meet with your current contractors to set expectations relating to what will be collected and/or processed.
• Discipline your education and enforcement program to help your residents better understand recycling requirements.
• Re-evaluate your recycling process to minimize contamination potential.
• Review your contract for a “Change in Law” clause if your current contract will terminate and/or be extended after October 1, 2020.
• If you are preparing to send out a Bid/RFP for these services, include/address new requirements in Bid/RFP document.

Jones Edmunds’ Civil and Environmental Client Services Manager, Alan Altman is a former County Solid Waste Director. He is more than happy to discuss options and assist with formulating a plan to mitigate the impact of this new legislation on solid waste programs throughout Florida. Alan may be reached at aaltman@jones-edmunds.local or 352-283-6260.