MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. — As Miami-Dade County debates where to build a new waste-to-energy incinerator amid an escalating solid waste crisis, one South Florida startup is proving that at least one type of trash doesn’t have to end up in a landfill: glass.
The county has been scrambling for long-term waste solutions since the Doral waste-to-energy facility caught fire in 2023.
Before the fire, the incinerator burned roughly 1 million tons of garbage each year. Now, with landfill space rapidly shrinking, county leaders are moving forward with plans for a new incinerator — a proposal that has sparked controversy, including concerns about potentially building near the Everglades.
Environmental advocates say the county cannot simply burn its way out of the crisis.
“If we want to fix our waste crisis, we must reduce and divert away from landfills and reclaim this really valuable material, like aluminum, like cardboard, like plastics,” said Dave Doebler, co-founder and president of VolunteerCleanup.org.
One material often overlooked in the conversation is glass.
According to the latest available data from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, less than 7% of glass in Miami-Dade County is recycled. Unlike plastic, however, glass can be recycled infinitely without losing quality.
“So to me, it’s mind blowing that we are sending this material that we need so much to a landfill, OK, without being recycled,” said Francisco Torres, founder of Glass for Life.
Torres launched Glass for Life after recognizing the untapped potential of discarded glass. The company grew out of Compost for Life, a compost pickup service he founded in 2020 to help residents and businesses reduce organic waste sent to landfills. Adding glass recycling became a natural next step.
“I understood that glass could be infinitely recycled and without losing its grade,” Torres said. “And it’s a material that we need very much.”
Glass for Life provides bins for homes, hotels and businesses to collect bottles, jars and other glass containers. Once collected, the glass is processed into sand-like material that can be reused in a variety of ways, including highway repairs, new bottles, construction materials and even emergency sandbags.
The effort addresses another growing global concern: sand depletion. Sand is the second most-used natural resource in the world after water, and experts estimate that humans extract about 50 billion tons of sand annually from the earth and oceans.
“Everywhere that you see a highway, that you see a building, that you see a construction, there is a lot of sand,” Torres explained.
Glass for Life transports the collected material to Sibelco, a large-scale recycling facility in Sarasota capable of processing up to 50 tons of glass per hour — roughly 10,000 tons each month.
Torres says the company’s mission is about more than recycling.
“We as a community movement, we’re taking action, we’re leading by example, and we’re welcoming properties, hotels (and) community members to become part of the solution,” he said.
Several South Florida hotels have already joined the initiative. Mr. C Miami in Coconut Grove became Glass for Life’s first customer and has diverted more than 20 tons of glass from landfills over the past two years.
The Palms Hotel & Spa in Miami Beach has also embraced the program as part of its sustainability efforts.
“It’s just the right thing to do,” said Tanja Morariu, the hotel’s director of marketing and head of sustainability. “We need to protect this wonderful place that we live in.”
The company also allows customers to track how much waste they divert from landfills. In just four months, The Palms recycled the equivalent of 4,000 glass bottles.
Residents are embracing the service as well.
“It feels amazing,” said customer Alessandra Calderin. “Every little piece of anything that we can keep out of the landfill is so important to me.”
For Torres, the effort represents a larger shift in how communities approach waste and sustainability.
“This needs to be part of our day-to-day life,” he said. “We are in an emergency. We are in the moment of truth that we need to make the right decisions today.”
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