Waste Management on Thursday cut the ribbon on WM Recycling South Florida, a 127,000-square-foot processing plant in Pembroke Pines that company and city officials say will sharply expand the region’s ability to recover and sell recyclables. The plant is designed to run at roughly 60 tons per hour, or about 275,000 tons a year, and to accept materials that have long caused problems for older machinery.
As reported by Pembroke Pines News, the facility is loaded with high-tech sorting gear, including 18 artificial-intelligence-powered optical scanners. Ten are dedicated to plastics, six to paper and two to glass and metal. The site also features a glass-paneled education room where school groups and civic organizations can watch the system in action and learn how the sorting process actually works.
How Much It Can Process
Industry reporting on the project puts daily capacity between about 750 and 825 tons, which lines up with the 60-tons-per-hour design and an annual throughput in the neighborhood of 275,000 tons. Resource Recycling noted those estimates while outlining WM’s plans and reported that the extensive automation is expected to boost throughput and improve the quality of finished bales sold to buyers.
Investment And The Bigger Push
WM first announced its commitment to build WM Recycling South Florida in 2022, saying in a company press release that it would invest roughly $75 million in the new plant. The Pembroke Pines facility is one piece of WM’s broader effort to modernize recycling infrastructure. The company’s sustainability materials state that WM is investing about $1.4 billion in recycling upgrades across North America through 2026, and WM says these projects are intended to expand capacity and make more materials marketable.
What It Means For Local Service
Officials said WM Recycling South Florida will serve Miami-Dade, Broward, Monroe and Collier counties and will operate beside WM’s existing Reuter Recycling Facility. Pembroke Pines suspended its traditional residential recycling program in 2022, and Mayor Angelo Castillo has called the plant’s launch a step toward restoring blue-bin collection. Local reporting also notes that adding curbside recycling would cost about $2 extra on the monthly utility bill. Pembroke Pines News added that trucks for the facility are expected to enter and exit via U.S. 27.
David Myhan, WM’s Florida area vice president, has described the site as the “largest and most technologically advanced” recycling facility planned for the Southeast and said the automation should allow the company to recover a much higher share of recyclables. Officials also said thousands of schoolchildren and community groups will be invited to tour the on-site 1,200-square-foot sustainability education station, according to WM.
