JACKSONVILLE, Fla — The City of Jacksonville announced last Monday that recycling pickup will be put on pause throughout the city.
This temporary solution comes after many residents complained about their trash not being picked up for weeks.
But the city did let residents know that recycling is still an option and you can drop your items off at one of the 14 sites in Jacksonville.
“We haven’t gotten our prices lowered yet we got to bring our own stuff out there. Look at this mess this is a park where the kids are supposed to have a good time," said Charles Irizarry who lives around the corner from William P Sheffield Regional Park, one of the city's recycle sites.
While there are many signs that say no trash, there were trash bags all around the dumpster.
“There isn’t even enough words to even put how I'm feeling about this and having to come to the park every day and look at this," said Irizarry.
“This is actually a great opportunity to create awareness around recycling, it gives us a huge opportunity to pause and reevaluate a broken system that we have," said Environmentalist and founder of beaches go green, Anne Marie Moquin.
Moquin says unfortunately only nine percent of plastic is recycled globally and less than seven percent in the united states.
“It’s important for people to recognize the amount of waste that we’re all producing and recognizing that contamination is a really big deal with recycling," said Moquin.
Here are some tips Moquin offered to reduce the amount of waste that you may produce.
“Never bag your recyclables. Anything that makes it to the recycling plant that’s in a plastic bag automatically gets pulled off the line and goes to the landfill. Nothing smaller than a credit card gets processed. We want to make sure everything is empty clean and dry," said Moquin.