Plantation council reviews Broward Solid Waste Authority master plan; officials eye lower, steadier disposal costs

Plantation City Council members on Wednesday heard a presentation on the Broward County Solid Waste Authority master plan that officials said would consolidate disposal contracts and aim to stabilize municipal disposal costs over decades. Council President Horland opened the workshop and introduced Samuel May, the authority’s new executive director, and consultant Daniel Deitch of SES Engineers.

The authority’s leadership framed the county system as fragmented and vulnerable to market shocks. “So we are in a solid waste, crisis,” Samuel May told the council, arguing that pooling municipal waste and signing long-term disposal agreements would create economies of scale, protect cities from sudden price spikes and free resources for recycling and education.

The presentation included sample funding models and per‑ton surcharge examples. May outlined a three‑phase approach that moves revenue collection away from a population-based model to a tonnage-based mechanism. Using the authority’s sample numbers, a household producing 1.3 tons per year would see an illustrative cost of about $2.89 per year — roughly 24¢ per month — under the early years of the plan. May said the plan anticipates moving to a solid waste assessment (a non‑ad valorem charge) by FY 2031.

Why it matters: authority staff said long-term, guaranteed tonnage contracts (the presentation used 20‑year examples) would allow processors and disposal facilities to offer lower, more stable prices, and the plan includes an emphasis on diversion, recycling quality and public education to reduce landfill reliance.

Consultant Daniel Deitch told the council that the authority is targeting about $10 per household per year for recycling education and outreach, a benchmark informed by industry exemplars. “The total recycling rate in the county is 38%,” Deitch said, citing 2024 data, and he added that the county’s rate for cans, bottles and fiber (excluding a 9% credit for waste‑to‑energy) is below 30%, well under prior performance levels.

Council members pressed for details and timelines. Councilmember Reinstein asked what level of education spending would be required to move the needle; Deitch said the program would require “millions of dollars” in aggregate but would taper over time only if sustained, and he warned that some resident-level incentive programs tested elsewhere have not proven cost-effective.

The master plan also proposes operational and regulatory changes. Horland and May discussed a countywide commercial construction and demolition (C&D) ordinance that would require C&D to pass through processing centers to recover recyclable materials (May said C&D can be roughly 50% recyclable material). The authority plans to build eight small recycling drop‑off centers for items the curb system may not handle, and May said those centers would function as collection points, not full processing facilities.

Governance and next steps: staff said the facilities amendment to the interlocal agreement (ILA) will be the formal document Plantation will consider; cities have 120 days from transmission to act, with the briefing noting an administrative deadline around Aug. 14–15. The council agreed to schedule a follow-up workshop and to place a resolution on the agenda for further consideration (staff referenced May 13 for a potential second workshop and May 27 as a likely meeting to consider the resolution). May and staff also said they would begin preparing RFPs for processing and disposal and begin site work for the drop‑off centers.

Claims and key figures in the presentation included the authority’s projection that long-term contracting would protect cities from market volatility; an illustrative household impact of about $0.24 per month in early years; per‑ton sample surcharges starting near $2.22 and rising modestly in the plan’s examples; and an education benchmark near $10 per household per year.

The council asked for additional materials and review time. Deitch said an updated executive summary of the roughly 1,700‑page master plan would be provided; staff and authority representatives offered one‑on‑one briefings for council members and broader public information officer coordination across municipalities. The council did not take a formal vote at the workshop; the next procedural step will be staff’s bringing the facilities amendment/resolution forward for formal consideration at a future Plantation council meeting.