Ordinance Requires Businesses in Florida County to Recycle

Habits and cultures take time to change.

With that observation from David Weston, Collier County officials and members of the Greater Naples Chamber of Commerce conceded defeat Tuesday in their effort to encourage a voluntary recycling program for businesses in Collier County.

"Everyone embraces the idea," said Weston, chairman of the chamber's recycling committee. "The challenge we face is getting people to change."

Commissioners directed their solid waste staff to develop an ordinance to require commercial recycling 18 months ago. But the commissioners chose not to pass that ordinance and instructed staff to work with the chamber on a voluntary recycling program.

The most recent estimates indicate about 10 percent of county businesses participate in the recycling program. The county's goal had been to bump that figure up to 15 percent to 20 percent by now.

Figures for the past 18 months show very little progress being made in raising the number of businesses that recycle.

Rather than pass the ordinance from 18 months ago, Collier County commissioners have instructed their staff to come up with a new mandatory recycling ordinance for businesses. The ordinance will mandate that businesses recycle certain types of materials.

Collier County Public Utilities Administrator Jim DeLony said he would come back to the commissioners in the next three to four months with an ordinance.

"The good thing about this is that we don't have our backs to the wall to get this done," DeLony said. "We can do this right."

County Manager Jim Mudd said the goal of the ordinance would be to find a way to make it beneficial to businesses that recycle.

"We need to look at the whole picture and find a way to incentivize this process," he said.

The goal of the recycling program is to extend the life of the county landfill by decreasing the amount of material going into it.

Weston said the voluntary program was beneficial even if it didn't succeed.

"This process needed to take place," Weston said. "Now that we know it didn't work, we can move forward with an ordinance."

Solid Waste Director George Yilmaz said the voluntary program had helped forge a solid working relationship between the county and the chamber.

"In my over 10 years of public service, this has been the most outstanding public-private partnership I've been involved in that has dealt with a public challenge," Yilmaz said.

The strong relationship would make it easier to work toward a mandatory ordinance, Yilmaz said. - Naples (Florida) Daily News