Featured Content
Lady Green Recycling is one of the few small companies in the recycling business. Learn how they do it in our latest interview with Michelle Salas.Register here for our next Conversation on our Future with MSC Cruises on how cruising is turning to more sustainable practices.
Let’s talk trash for a minute. When it comes to waste management and recycling, we usually think of those as government services. After all, we pay for it every year in our annual tax bills.
Recycling and trash pickup, though, can be a viable business. The global waste recycling services market is estimated to grow to $90 billion in the next decade.
“It’s hard entering a monopolized industry being a little guy, but as a grassroots company we are proof that it’s possible,” said Michelle Salas, Founder of Lady Green Recycling. You can watch our entire interview with the Miami native here.
Lady Green Recycling is a waste management company that offers waste pickup and recycling of paper, plastic, metal, and electronics. Salas started the company in 2010 while taking a master's class in environmental studies at Florida International University. A few years later she quit her full-time job to pivot to Lady Green Recycling while also creating an education platform for companies, schools, and homeowners. The company is based in Hialeah and services over 1,400 locations across Miami-Dade and Broward Counties. Those include large companies such as Kaseya, local schools, and private businesses. Salas said another 300 locations will be added to their pickup routes shortly.
“I think we need to decentralize our recycling and waste management in general,” she said of having more private – and smaller – companies enter the space. “That way we get more innovation as well.”
RECYCLING IS A DIVERSE AND CIRCULAR INDUSTRY
The Environmental Protection Agency lists more than two dozen different types of recycling organizations – from plastic bottle manufacturers to pavement producers. The industry also extends to niche markets such as computer demanufacturing, organics composters, and plastic lumber manufacturers.
Recycling starts with curbside collection by municipalities, which then goes to a processing plant with machinery to separate plastics and other recyclables. Some facilities include a manual sorting process. The sorted materials can eventually be used to create new products.
Recycling is part of the circular economy, meaning there are economic and environmental benefits. Recycling reduces the amount of waste sent to landfills and incinerators (preventing pollution), conserves natural resources such as water, and reduces greenhouse gasses by reducing the need to mine and process new raw materials.
On a national scale, the EPA estimates that recycling and composting municipal solid waste saved nearly 200 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2018. Recycling just ten plastic bottles saves enough energy to power a laptop for more than a day. The EPA offers this tool to see how much energy you can save by recycling certain products.
On the economic side, recycling increases economic security, creates jobs, and saves energy. The EPA’s Recycling Economic Information Report found that recycling accounted for more than 750,000 jobs, nearly $40 billion in wages, and $6.7 billion in tax revenues.
RECYCLING 101
The recycling rate in Miami-Dade County in 2020 was 19%, ranking 43rd out of the 67 counties in Florida. Meanwhile, the county also has a 40-50% recycling contamination rate. That’s when people place things in the recycling bin that aren’t recyclable and contaminate the rest. To help bring those rates down, the County has trained enforcement officers to check bins for contamination and put warnings on bins to help stop contaminated material from entering recycling carts. Repeat offenders are cited.
“We need the recycling facilities, but we also need the participation, and how we are going to do that is through education,” Salas said.
Lady Green Recycling is more than a services company. The free Lady Green app includes a sorting game that teaches you how and what to recycle. Salas has written a children’s book on recycling and works with schools to recycle milk jugs that are later turned into a park bench for the school.
“The entire school participated and got to see the full circle and the value of the material,” Salas said, showing how recycled products can be reused.
“It’s a great way to show the next generation what can be done.”
REGISTER FOR A CONVERSATION ON OUR FUTURE
Join Opportunity Miami and The Miami-Dade Beacon Council on August 7th for a conversation with Rick Sasso, Chairman of MSC Cruises USA, on the future of the cruise industry, and the economic impacts on Greater Miami.
This “oceanside conversation” will be led by Beacon Council CEO Rodrick Miller and is part of Opportunity Miami’s ongoing series “Conversations on our Future.” Sign up here.
PITCH US
If you have a company or entrepreneur to suggest or an idea to share that relates to building Miami’s future, email us at next@opportunity.miami. We invite you to subscribe to our YouTube channel and follow us on our social media channels. If you were forwarded this newsletter, you can subscribe by clicking here. And if you are new to Opportunity Miami, you can learn about our mission and work here.
Hope to hear from you.
– Suzette
