Pines recycling plant with ‘state of the art’ technology opens. Here’s what to know
Pembroke Pines is now home to an eco-friendly flagship — one of the largest recycling plants in the United States.
WM Recycling South Florida, operated by trash giant Waste Management, is opening its doors to be the lead processor of recyclables for Broward, Miami-Dade, Monroe and Collier counties.
The 127,000-square-foot facility is part of a $1.4 billion plan to upgrade WM locations nationwide, with officials adding that its cutting-edge equipment could make it the company’s best.
”It’s very technologically advanced, and it’s something that we wanted to put right here next to our existing facility to support our customers in South Florida,” David Myhan, WM’s vice president, said Thursday, Feb. 19, during a ribbon cutting for the facility.
Here’s what we know about the new recycling center.
Behind facility doors
Waste Management’s $90 million investment into its latest recycling facility matches its steep goals for the plant: processing up to 60-plus tons of material per hour and 275,000 tons of material per year.
If accomplished, WM Recycling South Florida would become the highest producer across the company’s 105 recycling facilities nationwide.
How does it plan to do that? Using “state of the art” technology to reduce the amount of manpower needed and optimize material sorting.
The plant is WM’s first location to include 18 artifical intelligence-powered optical scanners that parse through and categorize items based on their composition, streamlining its conveyor belt system to require fewer employees to handpick materials.
Ten of those scanners pick through plastics — the most involved material to sort through, considering there are seven types — six divy up paper goods and the remaining two work though glass and metal.
Technology improvements are also expanding the limits to what can be processed, with materials such as pizza boxes, glass bottles, and plastic cups and shopping bags — known to jam machinery — now finding a home at the facility.
“The objective is that anything that comes through this process, there’s a 95% output of recyclables,” Andres Limones Cruz, WM’s government affairs manager, told the Pembroke Pines News in November. “So anything that comes from here, we don’t lose more than 5%. The idea is to make that number smaller.”
But one of WM’s tried and true methods to optimizing the recycling process remains teaching community members that it starts in their home.
WM Recycling South Florida, which replaces WM’s outdated Reuter Recycling plant, will feature a glass-paneled “education room” built to host community groups for hands-on learning about how to handle reyclable goods.
Commercial customers and local students can expect interactive screens, educational videos and displays of WM materials in the facility’s “education room,” created to give residents a behind-the-scenes look and encourage them to recycle.
“I foresee thousands of school children will be following in our footsteps, taking (tours), marveling at the machinery, making connections to their day-to-day lives, and hopefully shaming their parents to do the right thing,” said Broward commissioner Beam Furr, who serves as vice chair of the county’s Solid Waste Authority.
What this means for Pembroke Pines
If you’re worried about odor or noise pollution, it’s unlikely the plant will cause much of a disturbance. WM Recycling South Florida is tucked away in West Pines, neighboring the also-secluded Pembroke Pines Fire Training Facility.
Trucks are expected to enter and exit the facility through rural highway U.S. 27, meaning WM shouldn’t impose on daily residential life.
Whether there’ll be a recycling agreement between WM and the city is still up in the air.
A traditional recycling program hasn’t existed in Pembroke Pines since 2022, when the city suspended its residential program due to high contamination rates that spiked costs and limited processing options.
Instead, residents are offered a curbside co-mingled solid waste collection once a week by Pembroke Pines’ waste contractor — Waste Pro USA — for an additional $2 on their monthly utility bill.
City commissioners were “thrilled” to support the new recycling plant, according to Mayor Angelo Castillo, who called the facility’s launch “a step in the right direction ... in becoming a cleaner and more environmentally friendly community.”
“It’s entirely possible that we could take our trash to (WM Recycling South Florida). It’s also entirely possible that we could take it to someone else,” Castillo told the Pembroke Pines News on Feb. 17. “We are committed to coming up with a solution for the city of Pembroke Pines that is real. ... I can’t wait to see the blue bins back in business.”
