This Wednesday is a “Red Wednesday”, which means trash and recycling pickup. Please go over what can be recycled. Ideally, rolling recycling containers are stored and deployed in the back alleys along with trash cans. Please make sure you pick up containers after pickup tomorrow night.

If you have not done so already, don’t forget to sign up for your Recycling Perks.
In order to take your recycling to the next level, read this: 10 ways to improve your recycling.

In local recycling news, Chesterfield County will, thankfully, continue to recycle. It’s government has decided to continue supporting the Central Virginia Waste Management Authority’s program of collecting paper, cardboard, glass and other recyclable items from residences for at least three more years.

Instead of pulling out, as the county had threatened last year because of rising costs, the Chesterfield Board of Supervisors voted instead to approve an increase in the yearly fee households pay for CVWMA’s curbside service.

U.S. News and World Report has an article on how Virginia as a whole is working to improve its glass recycling abilities.

And in local-international recycling news, a fragment of a Hampton,VA recycling bin was found washed ashore on a beach in Ireland this week, identifiable by its town seal printed in white.

Alright, I think the schedule was thrown off by President’s Day, but we now have the 2020 schedule, and this Wednesday is a “Red Wednesday”, which means trash and recycling pickup. Please go over what can be recycled. Ideally, rolling recycling containers are stored and deployed in the back alleys along with trash cans. Please make sure you pick up containers after pickup tomorrow night.

If you have not done so already, don’t forget to sign up for your Recycling Perks.
In order to take your recycling to the next level, read this: 10 ways to improve your recycling.

In recycling news, The NextGen Cup Consortium, an effort driven by McDonald’s and Starbucks, started reusable cup pilot programs at independent coffee shops around San Francisco and Palo Alto, California last week. The consortium is managed by Closed Loop Partners’ (CLP) Center for the Circular Economy, with the World Wildlife Fund serving as an advisory partner and design firm IDEO running the pilots.

It’s nice to see more sustainability efforts but everyone should be looking at corporate claims with a lot of skepticism. Greenpeace just released a report that includes a comprehensive United States survey of plastics recyclability. It found that U.S. companies are incorrectly labeling many plastic products as recyclable. The report, “Circular Claims Fall Flat”, states only PET #1 and HDPE #2 bottles and jugs are truly recyclable.

In more local news, this Saturday is the 6th Annual Shiver In The River, sponsored by Keep Virginia Beautiful. See more on that, but also more ‘about that’…

This Wednesday is a “Red Wednesday”, which means trash and recycling pickup. Please go over what can be recycled. Ideally, rolling recycling containers are stored and deployed in the back alleys along with trash cans. Please make sure you pick up containers after pickup tomorrow night.

If you have not done so already, don’t forget to sign up for your Recycling Perks.
In order to take your recycling to the next level, read this: 10 ways to improve your recycling.

Did you know that, in West Virginia, more than 1,000 Christmas trees were recycled to help fish habitats at 10 lakes last year. Meanwhile, a Virginia company says it can make trash disappear by heating it to 18,000 degrees.

This Wednesday is a “Red Wednesday”, which means trash and recycling pickup. Please go over what can be recycled. Ideally, rolling recycling containers are stored and deployed in the back alleys along with trash cans. Please make sure you pick up containers after pickup tomorrow night.

If you have not done so already, don’t forget to sign up for your Recycling Perks.
In order to take your recycling to the next level, read this: 10 ways to improve your recycling.

In recycling news…localities across Virginia continue to struggle with their recycling programs. In fact, Alexandria and some other Northern Virginia places have stopped recycling glass altogether. Roanoke is also struggling, but at the same time is experimenting with adding robots to its sorting process.

This Wednesday is a “Red Wednesday”, which means trash and recycling pickup. Please go over what can be recycled. Ideally, rolling recycling containers are stored and deployed in the back alleys along with trash cans. Please make sure you pick up containers after pickup tomorrow night.

If you have not done so already, don’t forget to sign up for your Recycling Perks.
In order to take your recycling to the next level, read this: 10 ways to improve your recycling.

Due to the holiday shopping season kick off with ‘Black Friday’ and ‘Cyber Monday’, watch the nation’s struggling recycling system try to to ingest increased tonnage of cardboard.

And on the state front, the Virginia Mercury online newspaper asks “Will this be the year Virginia imposes a plastic bag tax?”

This Wednesday is a “Red Wednesday”, which means trash and recycling pickup. Please go over what can be recycled. Ideally, rolling recycling containers are stored and deployed in the back alleys along with trash cans. Please make sure you pick up containers after pickup tomorrow night.

If you have not done so already, don’t forget to sign up for your Recycling Perks.
In order to take your recycling to the next level, read this: 10 ways to improve your recycling.

In recycling news, the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality released a positive report that said Virginia recycled almost half of its trash last year, setting a record despite China’s ban on importing plastic and other solid waste. Furthermore, according to the report, the Central Virginia Waste Management Authority, which includes Richmond and surrounding localities, had the highest recycling rate in the commonwealth — 59%.

Also, from a WTVR report:

One change is that many localities have dropped recycling glass because it is hard to find a market for that product. That is why DEQ is asking Virginians to minimize their use of glass.

“Citizens should try to generate less waste, like purchasing products with the least amount of packaging and those that are readily recyclable, such as aluminum cans vs. glass bottles,” said Anissa Rafeh, the department’s communications coordinator.

Glass can be problematic to recycle for several reasons, said Joe Romuno, director of national accounts for an environmental consulting firm called Great Forest Sustainability Solutions.

“Broken glass can contaminate other recyclables like paper and cardboard, lowering their value,” Romuno said. Moreover, broken glass can be a safety hazard to workers and can damage machines at recycling facilities.

Also, glass must be sorted by color in order to reprocess for recycling. “Glass is difficult to sort when broken, and if broken down too finely, it may become too difficult to reprocess,” Romuno said.

This Wednesday is a “Red Wednesday”, which means trash and recycling pickup. Please go over what can be recycled. Ideally, rolling recycling containers are stored and deployed in the back alleys along with trash cans. Please make sure you pick up containers after pickup tomorrow night.

If you have not done so already, don’t forget to sign up for your Recycling Perks.
In order to take your recycling to the next level, read this: 10 ways to improve your recycling.

In recycling news, major beverage companies have announced a new push for recycling.

Every year, an estimated 100 billion plastic bottles are produced in the U.S., the bulk of which come from three of America’s biggest beverage companies: Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Keurig Dr Pepper. The problem? Only one-third of those bottles get recycled; the rest end up in the trash.

Now, these companies are investing $100 million to improve recycling collection and processing. That money will be distributed through The Recycling Partnership, a Virginia-based nonprofit that works with local governments to improve recycling rates, and Closed Loop Partners, a New York firm that invests in recycling facilities and new research. The World Wildlife Fund will track the companies’ progress.

Time will tell if this really improves things or is just more greenwashing by corporations. Given the amount of plastic production, there are a lot of skeptics.

Meanwhile, in Scotland, plastic bottle recycling is being to create new material for road ways.

This Wednesday is a “Red Wednesday”, which means trash and recycling pickup. Ideally, rolling recycling containers are stored and deployed in the back alleys along with trash cans. Please make sure you pick up containers after pickup tomorrow night.

If you have not done so already, don’t forget to sign up for your Recycling Perks.
In order to take your recycling to the next level, read this: 10 ways to improve your recycling.

In recycling news, the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality announced that it had revoked the permit of a Petersburg landfill after complaints from nearby residents.