After roughly a month in legislative limbo, an attempt to have businesses report their recycling rates was drastically scaled back Wednesday.
Lawmakers on the Senate Community Affairs Committee unanimously voted to approve SB 570, Sen. Lee Constantine’s attempt to make the state recycle 75 percent of its solid waste by 2020.
“I really do think we can be the leader in recycling, and it will create jobs,” said the Altamonte Springs Republican.
Constantine’s bill originally required schools and state, city and county agencies and businesses with 25 or more employees to report their recycling rates. Those that didn’t comply would not be given preference when seeking government contracts.
On Wednesday, Constantine amended the bill to exempt private businesses from the requirement. It now merely encourages private business to report their recycling annually along with the other entities. Businesses that do file reports will be able to have their recycling rates posted on the Department of Environmental Protection's Web site, which will file the reports to the state biennially, to publicize themselves.
The change swayed at least one of the state’s major business lobbying groups.
At the bill’s previous stop, Keyna Cory, a lobbyist for Associated Industries of Florida, said it unnecessarily penalized businesses for not reporting their recycling rates. The amended bill does not.
“It’s voluntary,” Cory said. “And that’s what we wanted all along.”
The bill’s goal of raising the recycling rate to 75 percent is the result of targets defined by the Energy, Climate Change and Economic Security Act of 2008. The bill tries to raise recycling to 40 percent by the end of 2012, 50 percent by the end of 2014, 60 percent by the of 2016, 70 percent by the end of 2018 and 75 percent by the end of 2020.
The bill allows the DEP to review whether businesses and others are on target to meet the 40 percent recycling goal in 2012. If the goal is not met, DEP evaluators can adjust the goals for the next year, which could include lifting a state plastic-bag ban and other provisions.
The bill takes into account recommendations from a DEP report released in January to meet the state goal.
The report recommended requiring commercial recycling in counties with populations of more than 100,000 and cities with populations of more than 50,000, creating a Recycling Business Assistance Center to help businesses market recycled products, and creating a landfill fee.
The Recycling Business Assistance Center would aid the private sector in creating new markets for recycled materials, identify specific materials for market development and develop recycling incentives.
Christopher Milu, owner of Malakoo, Inc, which consults with businesses in Martin County on going green, said that imposing more regulation on businesses is the wrong way to encourage recycling. The best way to encourage recycling is through tax incentives, he said.
“The cause is great, but the approach is not appropriate,” he said.