This Wednesday is a “Red Wednesday”, which hopefully means trash and recycling pickup. I say hopefully, because the Central Virginia Waste Management Authority has struggled to maintain its schedule due to a shortage of workers and has missed some pickups recently and had to reschedule. That said, as neighbors, we should do our best to help.

One tool that might help ameliorate the situation if pickup does not come is this online form:
https://cvwma.com/programs/residential-recycling/recycling-service-request-form/

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, more and more people are recognizing the problem of plastics.

From a recent Politico article that is part of a special report, The Recycling Myth:

Most experts agree that recycling is an important way to reduce waste and to recover valuable materials, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions and conserving significant amounts of energy and water. And yet, of the 2.3 billion tons of waste generated in the EU each year, only 37 percent gets recycled.

Some materials, such as aluminum cans, glass and paper, are relatively easy to repurpose (Nearly three-quarters of this type of waste sees a new life as a consumer product.)

But plastic poses a particular problem. Of the 29 million tons of plastic waste collected in the EU (European Union) in 2018, less than a third was recycled. About a quarter went into landfills, and about 43 percent was burned in incineration plants.

“Plastic recycling is largely a fraud,” said Jim Puckett, the executive director of the Basel Action Network, an NGO (non-governmental organization) in the U.S. that works to end illegal waste trade. “It’s been sold to us as being the answer to all the plastic waste and consumption, but in fact it really has some fundamental aspects of non-circularity that are going to plague that myth and dream forever.”

That’s not what the plastics industry wants to hear. With growing public concern about plastics — fueled by stories about garbage patches in the middle of oceans, bottle-strewn beaches and animals choking on plastic pellets — the industry is worried their product could end up as a taboo, like tobacco.