Cash for Trash

"There is a new state law through which [the Department of Environmental Protection] will mandate that governments recycle 75 percent of the municipal solid waste," Greenstein says. "I think we'll have a new contract in a few years, and we can make changes."

But that law appears toothless. It mandates that the state regulators ask cities whether they'd cooperate with the endeavor. If those regulators get a hostile reception — as they certainly would from the powerful interests in Broward — the mandate will be scrapped. And even in its feeble condition, the law is under assault.

At the August meeting of the waste district's franchise cities, Greenstein called on members to join his effort to convince the state that burning trash should count as recycling.