Commuters driving down Biscayne Blvd. are greeted by a billboard seeking support for going green in Miami. (OSCAR DURAND/NYT INSTITUTE)

By TARYN LUNA

Jeff Onsted came to the Miami area a year and a half ago from California, where recycling is a way of life. But when he rented an apartment at a North Miami complex and looked for the recycling bins, he found there weren’t any. Onsted asked his manager why.

“He said that recycling would raise our association fees,” he said.

Onsted said he at least expected to be able to recycle at his new workplace, Florida International University, where he is an assistant professor specializing in urban and regional land use. But that wasn’t possible either.

“I came here shocked at how hard it was to recycle my bottles and cans,” Onsted said.

Even when he thought he could contribute to the environment by riding his bike the five and a half miles from his apartment to the FIU campus, Onsted got a surprise. “When I came here I was thinking, ‘Yeah, I’m going to ride my bike to school,’ but then I realized I would be dead in a couple of minutes,” he said, because traffic conditions were so hazardous.

“My assessment,” Onsted said of South Florida, “would be that it’s not a terribly green place, unfortunately.”

South Florida may be one of the least environmentally conscious urban areas in the country. Less than half of Miami’s residences recycle, said Jeanmarie Massa, the recycling manager for the Department of Solid Waste Management of Miami-Dade County.

In addition, the county’s transit system records about 350,000 trips per week in a metropolitan area of 2.4 million people. And two months ago, when the county called a meeting to discuss environmentally friendly initiatives, only 10 to 15 of the 33 cities sent representatives, said Maxine Calloway, North Miami’s planning and development director.

Dr. Jack Parker, an FIU emeritus professor of environmental studies, said the Florida Legislature is partly to blame. “Our Legislature is usually backward in terms of progressive environmental sustainability,” he said.

Miami-Dade’s transit system includes buses, a rail system with a train that loops around downtown and a paratransit system serving people with disabilities.

But the Legislature “dramatically underfunds public transportation,” said Brad Ashwell, of Florida Public Interest Research Group, a citizen-advocacy organization.

Last month, according to Florida Pirg, the state Department of Transportation outlined how it would use funds from a potential federal economic stimulus package. Only 1 percent of the money was slated for public transit and intercity rail projects.

Parker believes that interest in ecologically friendly activities here was greater in the late ’80s and early ’90s. In 1988, he said, FIU established a model recycling program, only to see it dismantled five years later. In 1992, the county implemented what he considered to be one of the best recycling programs in the county, which faded as education and financing declined.

Parker also pointed out that “we create two to three times the yard waste as Oregon and California, and we don’t do anything about it.”

No garbage services in Miami-Dade collect yard waste, although some companies provide drop-off points.

Stephanie Martinez lives in a 200-unit condominium development in Miami that does not recycle. Managers of multifamily complexes like hers are required to contract recycling services with private haulers. To save money, some don’t comply with county ordinances. The system is difficult to enforce.

Massa, the Miami-Dade recycling manager, said the Department of Solid Waste Management employs 22 enforcement officers to look into complaints about a lack of recycling services.

Parker said that number is not sufficient. “You can go to any mall in South Florida and there’s just no recycling and no enforcement,” he said. He said he thinks his fellow citizens are in favor of recycling, as long as it doesn’t cost them more money.

When there’s an opportunity to recycle, residents of South Florida are quick to take advantage of it.

Until last June, homeowners in unincorporated Miami-Dade County and 10 cities outside Miami were supplied with two small containers, one for glass and plastics and one for paper. The county collected about 2,000 pounds of recycling a month. In June, the county began replacing the containers with 340,000 65-gallon recycling carts. By December, collection had jumped to 500,000 pounds of recyclables a month, and distribution of the carts isn’t even complete.

North Miami is emerging as a rising star of environmental practices in Miami-Dade.

“In a lot of instances, we think we’re more progressive than the county,” said Calloway, the North Miami planning director.

In 2007, North Miami signed on to the 2030 Challenge, a plan adopted by the U.S. Conference of Mayors to greatly reduce greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2030. Among other initiatives, the city has implemented a Recycling Rewards Program that uses a bar code system to track the amount of recyclables in residents’ bins. The most proactive recyclers are entered into raffles and win gift cards to local businesses.

A 2005 assessment by the Florida Department of Community Affairs determined that North Miami’s streets could not be widened any further to accommodate an increasing population. To provide alternative modes of transportation, the city added carpool lanes, made bigger sidewalks, designated carpool spots and introduced a free shuttle called the NoMi Express.

North Miami still has a ways to go. In October, the city participated in the national Cans for Cash challenge to determine how well the community would respond to recycling. The goal to collect 3 million aluminum cans wasn’t reached by half.

Even creating bicycle paths wasn’t easy. There was strong opposition to creating a bike lane on 135th Street. Calloway said residents “didn’t want it there.”

“They thought it would invite the homeless guy on a bike to ride on their street,” she said.

After the poorly attended meeting two months ago to discuss environmentally friendly initiatives, Calloway said county officials promised they’d hold a follow-up meeting in what they called “progressive” North Miami. That meeting was supposed to happen in December, Calloway said, but she’s still waiting for the phone call to set it up.

“We’re controlling our emissions in North Miami,” she said, “but if bordering communities still have high emissions, what’s the point?