Miami Beach, FL Public Health Rules: Syringe Disposal (2026)

The city's solid waste chapter defines "biohazardous waste" in Sec. 90-2 to include, without limitation, nonliquid human tissue, laboratory and veterinary waste with human-disease agents, used disposable sharps, and human blood or bodily fluids. Sec. 90-103 then bars that entire category from routine collection: it may not go into garbage cans, trash containers or dumpsters picked up on a normal schedule. Instead, the code requires the waste be segregated and disposed of as state and federal law directs, expressly citing the procedures in Florida Administrative Code Chapter 17-7, which prohibits depositing this waste class in a sanitary landfill.

The chapter's enforcement machinery in Sec. 90-36 lets a designated city inspector enter a premises to check for violations and issue a written notice of violation, specifying the fine due and the correction deadline. Under the citywide fine schedule in Sec. 00 for a second or subsequent offense, well above the fines set for ordinary garbage and bulky-waste violations in the same subsection. The code does not create a separate siting or permitting scheme for needle-exchange or harm-reduction programs; the biohazardous-waste rule addresses disposal method only, not where such a program may operate.