Alachua County ranks fifth in Florida for recycling
Press release from Alachua County
ALACHUA COUNTY, Fla. – Alachua County ranked fifth out of Florida’s 67 counties for recycling in 2024, according to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s (FDEP) annual recycling report.
The county achieved an overall recycling rate of 67%, improving from its No. 6 ranking the previous year. Palm Beach County led the state for the third consecutive year with a 90% recycling rate, followed by Collier, Lee, and Baker counties.
Under state law, all Florida counties are required to annually report their waste and recycling tonnages to the FDEP, which uses this data to calculate county-level and statewide recycling rates. In 2024, Alachua County reported recycling 201,872 tons of material and landfilling 260,758 tons of solid waste.
This resulted in a 44% traditional recycling rate for the county. While landfilling remains an unsustainable long-term strategy, Alachua County’s partnership with New River Regional Landfill offers an innovative solution. New River is the first landfill in Florida to convert landfill gas into pipeline-quality natural gas, which is injected directly into the Florida Gas Transmission pipeline. In 2024, Alachua County sent 205,457 tons of waste to New River, generating the equivalent of 101,575 megawatt-hours of natural gas.
On an individual level, the average Alachua County resident generated 3.97 pounds of landfilled garbage per day in 2024.
“Reducing waste at the source or point of purchase—by avoiding disposable and over-packaged items, choosing reusable or secondhand goods, joining gift economy groups like Buy Nothing, and recycling accepted materials—are all great ways to make a personal impact,” said Alanna Carinio, public information coordinator for Alachua County’s Solid Waste and Resource Recovery.
The County sends all collected recyclables exclusively to domestic mills within the United States. This helps support American manufacturers by providing recycled feedstock for steel, aluminum, and paper production, reducing reliance on imports and shielding against supply chain disruptions and import tariffs.
In addition, residents can recycle electronics—including TVs, computers, phones, and batteries—at the County’s Household Hazardous Waste Collection Center. This enables domestic mills to recover precious metals and rare earth elements while preventing harmful pollutants from entering the environment.
Learn more about waste reduction and recycling.
It is my understanding from waste collectors that recycling is a lie. Everything goes to the landfill.
I am not sure about that.
But there are a lot of things that people think they can recycle that they can’t.
I was surprised to find out Pizza boxes are out. Who knew?
But certainly certain metals are for sure recycled.
Depends on the products being recycled apparently. Plastics are difficult to recycle becaue there are chemically too many different types. Paper and aluminum recycle fairyl easily. While recycling is a relatively small part of nvironmemtal activity, it is still of benefit and worth doing, and keep in mind that with that sytem in place, there possible technological improvements which can make it more effective.
I would be mindfull about spending too much energy getting it to a pick-up location. Washing with hot water or driving too far expends energy which may not make sense
For once, I agree with you Jazzman. I would like to see what kind of revenue is generated by the sale of the recyclables. Also a breakdown of how each City within the County does and their portion of any revenue derived.
Unclean plastic cannot be recycled typically as to clean it is cost prohibitive. That normally ends up in a landfill somewhere.
Cost needs to be below the benefit whenever possible!
This is ironic considering the number of times that my recycling was NOT picked up.
When you put garbage in your recycling bin they won’t pick it up they’re not going to take time to separate it for you
So, how much of the “recycled” tonnage is actually recycled? Inquiring minds want to know.
In 2024, Alachua County reported recycling 201,872 tons of material and landfilling 260,758 tons of solid waste.
A GFL employee collecting in my condo community was seen dumping the contents of a recycling bin in to a garbage bin. When asked why, his response was “Alachua county doesn’t recycle. It all goes to the landfill.” If it isn’t a lie, why are the GFL workers telling us this?
The best solution is to purchase less, seek out items with less packaging, and for the love…STOP BUYING BOTTLED WATER! Use reusable water bottles, skip plastic bags when shopping whenever possible. We can’t avoid plastic but we can certainly be mindful about using less.
It is good that the methane being produced at the landfill can be used for something. Note that material buried today won’t reach its peak methane production until after between five and seven years and then continue producing but at lower levels for up to 50 years or longer. For every ton of municipal solid waste up to about 50 kg of methane could be produced along with carbon dioxide. Does this harvesting of methane lower the tipping fees charged to Gainesville (Alachua County), or is the profit shared in some other fashion?
Recycled materials are supposed to help preserve landfill volume by reducing waste and the cost for recycling should at least be covered by the sale of these recycled materials. In Gainesville (Alachua County), is recycling profitable, break even, or done at a loss adding cost to the service for the customers?
One additional point, if done properly, each ton of municipal solid waste can be turned into carbon negative hydrogen which could be sold for at least $3.00 per kg or used to produce power for a new data center that in other states will pay $200+ per mega-watt hour. Incidentally, municipal solid waste if processed for hydrogen, could produce about three mega-watt hours per ton, or about 615,000 mega-watt hours of electricity which might if generated for the appropriate data center and provide about $123,000,000 annually.
Considering the above, it would mean that the landfilled waste actually could have a market value of about $75,000,000 annually for hydrogen, or $123,000,000 for electricity potentially for a data center and this is a big difference from paying over $5,000,00 to landfill the material.
Garbage has value and waste shouldn’t be wasted, or allowed to contaminate the environment. Hopefully, we the customers will benefit from something other than just the collection and disposal.