This story was reported and written by VPM News.
State data shows a steady decline in the Virginia recycling rate between 2021 and 2024, and a new report from the state Department of General Services highlighted some difficulties Virginia agencies face in adopting recycling programs.
The report was a result of Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s Executive Order 17, a 2022 effort to divert more of the commonwealth’s waste from landfills. The order also called for new advanced recycling facilities, renewed recycling programs and use of postconsumer recycled products.
Despite those goals, state data shows recycling rates in the commonwealth have declined slightly since Youngkin took office. And the number of core recycling facilities in Virginia declined by about 13% from 2012 to 2022, according to U.S. Census Bureau data; data for the following two years was not immediately available.
Who pays?
Zach Huntington, marine debris strategy director at Clean Virginia Waterways, said there are obstacles throughout the waste system that inhibit the reduction of landfill waste and litter in Virginia. One of those obstacles is money.
“The Litter Control and Recycling Fund is extremely successful, despite generating the lowest revenue per capita of any state that uses a similar system,” Huntington said.
The fund is administered by the state’s Department of Environmental Quality, funded by taxes on commonly littered products and disburses money to localities to run a variety of recycling programs. A CVW report from last year called for a closer look at those funding sources, which have not kept up with the inflation of recycling costs. A budget amendment to study the issue failed in committee earlier this year.
Access is also an issue: Not all localities have recycling programs, and not all recycling programs offer pickup. Apartment residents might have to deal with insufficient bin space or not having recycling bins at all. And all recycling vendors have to be selective about what they take; some things like electronics cost a lot to process and most plastics are hard to process and sell.
Huntington said the state could pursue policy changes to raise more funds and reduce the amount of waste being generated in the first place.
“That needs to come with the acknowledgement that it’s impossible to recycle our way out of the plastic pollution problem,” Huntington said.
That could mean pursuing extended producer responsibility laws — making producers of plastic waste pay for recycling programs. Huntington said data from a 2022 survey run by CVW shows voters are open to that idea with 71% of respondents agreeing some costs should be shifted to producers.
Legislators and Youngkin previously have attempted to bring "advanced recycling" facilities to Virginia. That’s an umbrella term for facilities that use chemical processes to break down certain materials — especially plastics that can’t be processed in typical recycling facilities — into feedstocks for new products.
Advanced recycling facilities have been criticized for their environmental impacts: They burn fossil fuels and use chemicals, and can only handle certain materials. Others are landfilled or used as feedstocks for petroleum fuel.
One such facility planned for Cumberland County received $200,000 in state funds before being canceled in 2022 by operator Braven Environmental.
“Virginia desperately needs to invest in recycling, but they need to invest in true recycling opportunities — aluminum and glass, and legitimate plastic reuse or down cycling — whether it's made into buckets or composite decking and benches, but not into fossil fuel or fossil fuel additives,” Huntington said.
Some facilities exist in Virginia that “downcycle” plastics into other products, such as Winchester-based Trex, which produces decking and other outdoor building materials from used plastic and wood.
State agency recycling programs
State agencies surveyed by the DGS report faced difficulties like lack of funding or personnel, lack of access to recycling programs or vendors and knowledge gaps on best practices or benefits.
“As an agency, the desire is to recycle as much as possible. The majority of our park locations are in rural communities and the recycling opportunities vary greatly. These range from no available recycling to locations that have many options,” one agency wrote.
Youngkin’s executive order also required the Department of General Services to measure the total weight of recycled materials.
Eleven agencies provided data on their recycling tonnage, down from 14 last year. They reported recycling 104 metric tons, compared to 698 in the 2023 report.
The decline could be due to a range of reasons: reporting inaccuracies, fewer reporting agencies or an actual decline in recycling.
The report included four recommendations:
- Implement recycling plans into employee onboarding
- Designate a “recycling point person”
- Utilize DEQ guidance
- Standardize recycling weight measurements.
Three-quarters of responding agencies said they have a recycling plan to raise awareness and capture recyclables. But the data is limited: 47 of 101 agencies, including public universities, responded to the survey questions for 2024. That’s a decrease from 62 responses in the 2023 report.
What will the General Assembly do?
Waste management will be considered in the upcoming General Assembly session — at least in fiscal discussions. Youngkin again proposed delaying the start of a gradual ban on polystyrene takeout containers in his December budget proposal.
This measure has gone back and forth. Initially passed in 2021, it would have required large restaurant chains to phase out unrecyclable material by 2023 — and all other restaurants by 2025. The following year, Youngkin and the GA pushed that back to 2028 and 2030, before being moved again this year to 2025 and 2028, respectively.
The Youngkin administration did not respond to a request for comment on the recycling reports.
The governor's latest budget amendment moves the ban back to 2028 for big restaurants, 2030 for all others — citing costs of the shift for small restaurants.
Alternative measures — including a so-called “bottle bill,” an extended producer responsibility measure — that have been discussed by Huntington and others haven’t gained enough support at the Capitol to consider submitting legislation.
“Sourcing local recycled material lessens our dependance on overseas material, gives us more control over quality, avoids being the dumping ground for unfair trading and may avoid future tariffs,” said Rick Galliher, founder of the VA Bottle Bill Organization, in an email. “Keeping the money here in Virginia will grow the state's economy, now we are buying glass from New England states for use here.”
Galliher said bottle bills have only succeeded with support from manufacturers, which he’s trying to garner now.
States with bottle bills are generally better at recycling beverage containers than the rest of the country. For example, compare Virginia’s 8% rate for PET bottle (a traditionally recyclable plastic) recycling to Maine’s 75% or Oregon’s 71%.
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