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, a Roanoke-area recycling center is developing a plan for its big pile of glass.
Article excerpt:

But glass, which historically has a low recycling rate in the United States, creates a bottleneck at RDS. Unable to find a buyer, and unwilling to haul it to the landfill, Benedetto let it accumulate at the Roanoke facility. The pile of cullet, or crushed glass, is estimated to weigh more than 1,800 tons.

The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality cited RDS earlier this year for exceeding a storage limit of 150 tons for recyclable waste.

In an agreement with DEQ, Benedetto accelerated his plans to grind the crushed glass into a finer, sand-like material and remove contaminants such as small pieces of bottle caps, paper and plastic waste.

The process, which involved spending close to $100,000 on a trammel and other equipment, will make the glass more marketable as fill material for roads and other construction projects and as an ingredient in the making of concrete and asphalt.

(quick editorial: Why not use this piece as a starting point for examining the role recycling in the current climate crisis? Reduce and Reuse are prior to Recycle, and the life-cycle of these processes has an enormous carbon footprint. Not all green solutions are equal, and some aren’t even green, much less solutions.)

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, aluminum beverage cans could be gaining market share over plastic bottles in Japan, according to a recent media report in that nation.

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 exciting news, Maine is the first state in the United States to require producers of packaged goods sold in the state to finance the maintenance and expansion of municipal recycling programs. The extended producer responsibility (EPR) bill also will provide funds to improve recycling in the state through education and infrastructure investments.
Why not Virginia? So far, Commonwealth politicians support ‘advanced recycling’, which makes recycling ‘a manufacturing activity’, but show little interest in holding corporations (their campaign donors) more responsible.

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…

There was a recent explosion at a recycling center in Wytheville, VA.

University of Virginia in Charlottesville has announced that it will no longer purchase single-use plastic bags, plastic cutlery, plastic food containers and plastic straws beginning July 21. Some existing inventory will be used until depleted. The University will phase out plastic water bottles and plastic bag liners over the coming year to the extent possible, with significant reductions in plastic water bottles by July 21. (What about it, University of Richmond? VCU? Virginia Union?)

A national industry exposition held in Las Vegas focused on the need for a national recycling strategy that can benefit from standardization and investment.

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, according to the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality’s latest annual report on solid waste management, a quarter of all of the waste that winds up in Virginia comes from outside the commonwealth.

So where, exactly, does it come from?

Neighboring Maryland, D.C. and North Carolina — along with New York and New Jersey — are the biggest sources of waste from outside the state.

Nearly 22.5 million tons of waste overall were collected by Virginia in 2020, a small decrease of approximately 24,800 tons from the amount reported in 2019, according to the report.

The amount of waste from outside Virginia decreased as well, by 1.9% or 108,000 tons.

The report showed about 72% of all trash went to landfills. Another 12% was incinerated and most of the rest was either recycled, mulched or composted.

The DEQ said its annual recycling report for 2020 will be issued later this year.

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 word is getting out about the Richmond Coliseum…”Arenas and stadiums tend to provide considerable amounts of recyclable concrete and structural steel during the demolition process.”

This Wednesday is a “Red Wednesday”, which USUALLY means trash and recycling pickup, but because of the Memorial Day holiday on Monday, trash and recycling pickup (should) move to Thursday.

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 Thursday 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, Central Virginia Waste Management Authority has put out their June newsletter. It contains information on Virginia Oyster Shell Recycling Program, Summer Reading and CVWMA, efforts to Eat Fresh. Buy Local, and CVWMA employment opportunities.

Local environmentalist Emily Kimball recently had a fantastic letter-to-the editor in the Times Dispatch newspaper about moving beyond plastic.

It’s no secret that, during the pandemic, many restaurants relied on take-out orders to survive and that meant a lot of packaging. Now, as things reopen more, is the time to remind our local businesses that we demand better choices in packaging, ones that have less harmful impact on the environment. And not just restaurants!
Richmond, due to several factors, is a national test market for many national and international corporations. We have a responsibility to demand better.

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, this past month saw the announcement that a former paint factory situated on 1900 Ellen Road in Richmond’s Scott’s Addition neighborhood will soon be the home of a new manufacturing facility for pipette recycling company Grenova. The $10.6 million investment will bring 250 jobs to the city over the next three years. The company name ‘Grenova’ stands for green innovation. It enables the lab and life science industry to safely wash and reuse plastic consumables.

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.

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.

Virginia’s recycling rate was 43.2% in 2019, down about three percentage points from the year before, according to an annual report released in January by the Department of Environmental Quality. Figures for 2020 were not available.

The Roanoke Times has a good story on some of the different challenges in recycling in Virginia (click here).