Both Landfills At Capacity, An Incinerator That Burned Down; Miami-Dade Sending Garbage 100 Miles For Burial

DORAL, Fla. — Two years ago, Miami-Dade County awoke to a garbage nightmare. Both of the county landfills were nearly full, and the aging incinerator that once burned the lion’s share of the county’s waste had, itself, burned down in a runaway trash fire. After the fire, County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava proposed what she said would be the best solution to a bad problem: replacing the wrecked incinerator with a new $1.5 billion waste-to-energy facility that would generate enough electricity for 70,000 homes, pollute less than the old plant and — the mayor said — wouldn’t stink.

If built, it would be the biggest incinerator in the United States, potentially paving the way for other cities and counties to adopt a waste-management method that some scientists say is the least bad option to deal with trash that can’t be recycled or composted. The only problem is, nobody wants it. Environmentalists called the proposal a way to greenwash burning garbage. Neighbors who lived with the old incinerator’s stink protested the plan. “I’m not saying I’m glad it burned down,” said Fabiano de Lisio, who has run a business selling motors a block from the incinerator site for 15 years. “But I’m happy I can’t smell that stench anymore.”

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After months of public uproar and private lobbying — including by the Trump family, which owns the nearby Trump National Doral golf course — Levine Cava pulled her support for the incinerator plan. The mayor now says the county should stick with the emergency measure it has been using since the fire: sending trucks and trains 100 miles north to dump waste in central Florida. The final decision is up to county commissioners, who will be voting in coming weeks. “I became mayor to make tough decisions about our future, and this is certainly among the toughest if not the toughest I have encountered,” Levine Cava said.

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Miami-Dade County is one of at least 100 U.S. local governments that has developed a “zero waste” plan in recent years, according to a tracker from Waste Dive, a publication focused on waste management. But Florida is one of eight U.S. states that has made it illegal for local governments to ban or limit certain kinds of plastic waste, usually a key element of such plans. Instead, Miami-Dade County pledged to use less plastic in facilities it owns, including Miami International Airport and PortMiami, the world’s biggest cruise ship port.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2025/01/28/miami-waste-to-energy-incinerator/