Environment

About 150 volunteers with Current Problems Inc., a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting water resources in North Florida, recently collected 6,590 pounds of trash from creeks around Gainesville. Most of the trash likely came from flooding during Hurricane Irma, said Megan Black, executive director of Current Problems.

Wishful recycling is when a consumer hopes that a good is recyclable and puts it in their collection bin, but in reality, that slows down the recycling operation.

Megan Black said that nearly all creeks in the Gainesville area are considered “impaired.” This classification indicates that the water body has become so polluted that it no longer does its job properly, and county officials are taking notice.

The county and its municipalities all receive portions of this funding, but the largest chunk, 57.17 percent, goes to the county and the second largest 35.78 percent, to the City of Gainesville. What is Gainesville going to spend this money on?

With $100 million a year Florida has budgeted for land acquisition and conservation, Alachua County could have the funding to buy 13,351 acres of land for future parks.

Of the thousands of tons of recycling processed each year by the Alachua County Materials Recovery Facility, some of those items cannot be recycled.