Recycling Drop-off Program

The solid waste collection contractor no longer collects residential recycling materials curbside from each residence. Highlands County has constructed three recycling drop-off centers situated within the Town of Lake Placid, City of Sebring and City of Avon Park. An additional two locations will be added later, making for a total of five recycling drop-off center locations in Highlands County. Residents (both county and city residents) are allowed to bring clean recycling materials for drop off at these locations.

This change was necessary due to the overwhelming amount of contamination entering the curbside recycling stream. Recycling contamination occurs when non-recyclable materials are placed into the recycling collection containers.

Due to a dynamic global recycling market, recycling processing facilities are not able to accept any recycling products that do not pass a stringent series of tests to make sure they are clean and not contaminated. Due to the high levels of contamination in the curbside recycling program, most of the collected material was being rejected and sent to the landfill after inspection.

This change was important to ensure items that should be recycled are recycled.

By making this change from curbside recycling to drop-off center recycling, we will be able to collect more usable recycling material, and this will improve our overall recycling percentage in the County. This program will also be available to more residents, many of which did not have an avenue to recycle under the County’s curbside program.

During operational hours, the drop-off centers have attendants on site to answer questions and help residents only deposit items that can be recycled. This will help ensure that almost all the items dropped off will be recycled.

The drop-off centers will collect the following acceptable materials:

Paper: Only clean, dry, newspaper, junk mail, office paper (no shredded paper) and other non-coated paper.

Plastic: Only clean, dry, plastic (bottles, jugs, and jars).

Metal: Only clean aluminum, steel, and tin cans.

Cardboard: Only clean, dry, flattened, cardboard or boxboard (no cardboard lined with plastic or any waxed or waterproof cardboard).

GLASS (WHITE) BIN

Glass: Only clean, dry bottles jars, Pyrex, mirror and window glass.   

BATTERIES CAN ALSO BE TAKEN TO ANY OF THE THREE (3) DROP-OFF RECYCLING CENTERS DURING THEIR NORMAL OPERATING HOURS WHERE AN ATTENDANT WILL SEPARATE THE ITEMS AN HOLD THEM FOR LANDFILL STAFF TO RETRIEVE.

Please, no plastic bags go into the recycling bins at the drop-off centers. Bags used to transport recycling to a drop-off center will need to be emptied and then disposed of as garbage (unless they are re-usable).      

The drop-off centers give more Highlands County residents an option to recycle they are open to ALL residents, including those who live in city and town limits.

The drop-off recycling centers are able to collect more recycling materials than were previously collected. Paper is once again being accepted and glass will be collected separately at these facilities.

With this program, there are dedicated attendants at each recycling drop-off location to help assist residents with questions and make sure the recycling materials you drop off are not contaminated by others. This will result in a higher percentage of material reaching the recycling processing facilities and eventually being re-used.

The new program reduces the number of trucks required to pick-up garbage, reducing the wear and tear on the roadways, and allowing more trucks to be dedicated to picking up garbage. This will increase the level of service provided by the garbage collection vehicles and help avoid common collection problems.

The material in the green carts will be collected with the same garbage trucks that are picking up the blue garbage carts. You may now use the green cans for general garbage if you wish and put both carts out for garbage collection. All materials placed inside the green cart will need to be bagged.

You can now place garbage in the green cans, just as you normally would with the blue garbage carts, and it will need to be bagged. Both carts will be collected by the same truck and the material will be disposed of in the Highlands County Landfill.

Please continue checking our website for updates on this program.