COCOA, Fla. -- Recycling is as popular as ever, but environment do-gooders may actually be doing more harm, than good.

  • Plant forced a shut down due to incorrect items recycled
  • Waste Mangement calls them 'wish-cyclers'
  • Plastic bottles, cardboard, aluminum cans OK
  • Not OK: plastic bags, ropes, clothing, among others

In fact, a Cocoa plant is forced to shut down several times a day due to what some are putting in their home recycling bins.

"We call them 'wish-cyclers'," said Amy Boyson of Waste Management. "They think that something is recyclable, and they put it in their cart, and it comes to us, we are going to recycle it."

Plastic bottles, cardboard, aluminum cans are all OK.

Other items people think can be recycled can cause big problems here at Waste Management's Cocoa facility.

It's where guys wearing protective hats, glasses and gloves, as fast as they can, sift out the stuff that shouldn't be in on the assembly line -- things like plastic bags, Christmas lights, ropes and clothing.

And sometimes, other off items make their way through. 

When we visited, we saw heavy metal pans, blades, and even an old, heavy DVD player.

“If the wrong things come in, it can shut down the entire facility," Boyson told Spectrum News.

That happened while we were there, and it happens at least twice a day on average, and one day last week no work could be done for six hours.

The same guys who had just been busy sorting through the bad stuff now have to go in and pick out the now chewed up things they missed.

"They get tangled in our equipment," Boyson explained. "It's the other items that are contaminating and sending good recyclables to the landfill."

Plastic sheets, wires and rope that has now clogged up the sifters, force workers to shut the line down.

It means nothing intended for recycling can continue on, until the clean-up, wraps up.