The Virginia Recycling Association is pleased to see the report and the economic value recycling brings to the Commonwealth. There are two comments we have regarding the report:

• The report fails to address the increased cost of recycling due to some municipalities discontinuing their municipally funded curbside recycling programs (such as the City of Chesapeake and Chesterfield County) and the resulting economic impact.
• The report does not mention the EPA grants awarded in Virginia for residential recycling programs under the Infrastructure Act.

We also encourage further discussion around advanced recycling opportunities for the Commonwealth and how we can entice those businesses to find a home here in Virginia.

Clean Virginia Waterways acknowledges and values the Department of Environmental Quality's effort to enhance comprehension regarding the environmental and economic impacts of Virginia's recycling system. We have a few comments to help Virginia improve recycling systems.

Increasing Recycling Rates in Virginia 

Recycling is intended to be a cyclical process. As stated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), “A circular economy keeps materials, products, and services in circulation for as long as possible.” A true circular economy is dependent on a robust mechanical recycling industry to create a system with minimal waste. Taking this approach to bolster markets for glass, metal, and cardboard recycling markets is critical to improving Virginia’s recycling rates.

Melting plastics to be used as additives for fossil fuels (advanced recycling) is a linear system, and these processes are not considered recycling by the EPA. In fact, the EPA specifically outlines that “Activities that convert non-hazardous solid waste to fuels or fuel substitutes (“plastics-to-fuel”) or for energy production are not considered to be ‘recycling’ activities.” This includes pyrolysis, gasification, chemical conversion, and all other plastic-to-fuel technologies. (Language is modified from the EPA Draft National Strategy to Prevent Plastic Pollution).

Economic burden on taxpayers: The report fails to address the economic burden that recycling programs have on municipalities (taxpayers). Curbside recycling programs are mainly funded by municipalities rather than the producers of the items that are found in recycling. The DEQ report could be strengthened by including data from other states that have policies that have the “polluter pay” through extended producer responsibility requirements.

There are proven policies that reduce the economic burden on localities and strengthen recycling programs. For example, in 2021, Maine signed LD 1541 into law. This legislation is intended to reduce the volume and toxicity as well as increase the recycling of packaging material. Producers of packaging pay into a fund based on the volume and recyclability of their products. The funds generated are used to reimburse localities for recycling and solid waste management activities. This approach is also supported by Virginia voters. In a 2022 Clean Virginia Waterways survey of registered Virginia voters, 71% of registered voters expressed support for policies that shift the costs of recycling programs off of community taxpayers and onto producers. The complete survey results are available on the CVW publications page.

Litter Prevention & Recycling Grants (page 10): The DEQ report could be strengthened by comparing the income of the VA Litter Tax ($2.9 million in FY2023) to other states and communities. Virginia’s Litter Control and Recycling Fund generates the lowest revenue per capita of any state using a similar system. Much of this information can be found in the CVW publication: “Opportunities to Reduce Plastic Pollution: Policy Recommendations & Best Practices for the Virginia Litter Fund” available on the CVW publications webpage.

Plastic Recycling is shockingly low in Virginia: The charts on pages 9 and 10 (CY2021 Principle Recyclable Materials Recycled in Tons) shows that plastics are in 13^th place in terms of recycled tons—well behind metal, paper, tires, glass and eight other types of materials. Research by CVW and the Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center found that 83% of all debris on Virginia’s shoreline is made of plastic—and most of that is single-use items such as plastic beverage containers, caps, bags, food wrappers, etc. Data collected by volunteers during the statewide “International Coastal Cleanup in Virginia” show that about 85% of littered items are made of plastic.

The DEQ report could be strengthened by doing a comparison of plastic recycling rates in states that have deposits on beverage containers (bottle bills) vs. states like Virginia which do not have recycling refunds for such containers. The consistently low rates of plastic recycled in Virginia is evidence that the Commonwealth would benefit from exploring source reduction (creating less waste), increased mechanical recycling, expanded responsibility from the producers of single-use packaging, and economic incentives to consumers (deposits on beverage containers, for example).

Recycling Credits: Recycling Tax Credits are mentioned on page 11: "For 2022, 38 applications were received from manufacturing and recycling facilities to obtain DEQ certification for the state tax credit." The DEQ report could be strengthened by expanding this section. What companies applied, and are they engaged in mechanical recycling.

State tax credits for recycling should not be available for “plastic to fuel, plastic to fuel additive, or plastic to fuel substitutes” manufacturing. According to the EPA pyrolysis and other plastics-to-fuel technologies are not to be considered recycling, this will make Virginia consistent with the EPA that states: “Activities that convert non-hazardous solid waste to fuels or fuel substitutes (“plastics-to-fuel”) or for energy production are not considered to be “recycling” activities. (Language is modified from the EPA Draft National Strategy to Prevent Plastic Pollution)

Expanding Recycling Access

States across the United States have historically struggled with providing recycling services to underserved and rural communities. Michigan is investing to improve recycling in underserved areas with their Rural and Small Community Recycling and Waste Reduction Program. The program explores viable options for small, rural, and underserved communities to address waste reduction while simultaneously strengthening local markets for recycling collection. Ultimately, the program seeks to empower localities to implement policies that achieve both of these goals.

Given the diversity of communities in Virginia–from highly-populated urban centers to suburbs, coastal towns, and rural farm regions–as well as concern over the increased cost of recycling, it would behoove Virginia to conduct similar investigations into how an aging and inadequate mechanical recycling infrastructure can be updated equitably and economically, instead of shuttered in favor of new, even more costly, false solutions to manage waste. 

We encourage continued conversation about how Virginia can improve our recycling infrastructure to benefit human, environmental, and economic health. 

Thank you for this opportunity to comment on the critically important draft report. Virginia Conservation Network and our more than 165 conservation organizations from across the commonwealth concur with and are reflected through the comments in the Feb. 1, 2024 comments submitted by Clean Virginia Waterways. We ask for the agency’s consideration and incorporation of the specific issues and concerns stated therein prior to finalization of its report.

As someone who has worked the last 15 years in Fairfax County on recycling and plastic pollution issues, embedded as a non profit entity within Fairfax County’s Department of Public Works and Environmental Services, and who sat on the Governor’s Plastic Waste Pollution Advisory Council as the only environmentalist, I absolutely agree with the premise that Virginia needs to increase its recycling rate, and the value of that recycling. The question is: how do we do that in a way that is both environmentally and economically friendly? 

Virginia’s recycling systems (and frankly, its streams and sides of the roads) are overwhelmed by plastic, the majority of which is single use and its ability to truly be recycled into something useful is slim. All of this low quality plastic (like film and flimsy single use water bottles) reduces system efficacy and lowers the value of Virginia’s recycled material–the good stuff like metal and cardboard, and paper and glass. 

I would like to suggest that one of the first items that is missing from the DEQ’s report is the EPA’s assessment of Advanced Recycling/Chemical Conversion/Plastic to Fuels. Specifically, the clarification that “activities that convert non-hazardous solid waste to fuels or fuel substitutes (‘plastics-to-fuel’) or for energy production are not considered to be ‘recycling’ activities” (from the recent EPA Draft National Strategy to Prevent Plastic Pollution). Consistent with this guidance from the foremost national entity on the environment, “advanced recycling” technology is not recycling, and thus should not be part of any economic discussion about recycling in Virginia. 

Secondly it is indeed a shame that the report relied on the Census numbers from 2012 to report out the amount of jobs in recycling and the amount of income recycling brings to Virginia, because between then and now there was this epic recycling disaster that we all know as Operational National Sword (ONS) in 2017. ONS caused the bottom to fall out of recycling as we know it here in the US, which is why the convenient “solution” since has been to simply melt it into fuel stock. But this process of turning waste into fuel derivatives and feedstock is not recycling, for it is not re-generating or re-producing any material to its original form. For those who are still unclear about the difference between a linear and a circular economy, I give you this: a circular process takes a glass bottle or a cardboard box and recycles it back into a glass bottle or a cardboard box. 

Third, it is unfortunate that the report did not go into the value of getting back to our roots–multi stream recycling. I do know how hard it is to get decent data from localities around the Commonwealth (maybe that should be a goal!), because there are several different ways recycling is collected–by the municipality, by private hauler, and by dedicated drop off locations that are serviced by private haulers or localities. But the “Purple Can Club” in Northern Virginia which collects glass dropped off by residents after the localities and haulers stopped picking it up has proven to be a very successful project–because that glass is clean and there is a market for it. Imagine if we had a dedicated collection for cardboard, metal cans, specific PET bottles, etc. that were already sorted for the recycling companies and MRFs? CAN YOU EVEN IMAGINE?! Excuse me while I breathe into a paper bag. 

In many of the discussions hashed out while I was a member of the Plastic Waste Pollution Advisory Council, it seemed we were discussing two very different topics–reducing the amount of plastic pollution, and propping up the recycling industry. And the question always was–are these two issues mutually exclusive? As an environmental advocate I believe that we can work on less plastic on the front end while supporting high quality mechanical recycling on the back end, and support the areas where there is a market for actual recycling (such as cans, paper, cardboard and glass.) And, if industry was truly concerned about plastic pollution, they’d be lining up to support plastic bottle deposit bills all around the country. Which brings me to another interesting omission in this DEQ report: of the states used in this study, only one, Michigan, has a bottle bill (which works hard to collect CLEAN plastic) but the report fails to actually mention that. 

Bolstering markets for glass, metal, cardboard and even plastic recycling markets (while we can quibble on whether recycling plastic bottles into industrial carpet is truly recycling and a circular economy, what we will not capitulate to is whether pyrolysis is recycling) is critical to improving Virginia’s recycling rates. It is our hope that the Commonwealth supports true recycling initiatives and is not controlled by the interests of the plastics and petrochemical industries who cry crocodile tears about the sorry state of recycling while fighting every single attempt to reduce plastic pollution and limit extended producer responsibility.   “Advanced Recycling,” “Plastics to Fuel,” “Pyrolysis,” “Chemical Conversion,” or any number of industry rebranded terms designed to make the process more palatable to legislators and localities, reflect a soft and disingenuous way of saying “using chemicals and heat to melt plastic which then gets burned as fuel.” These terms and technologies should not be promoted by Virginia, ever. 

Thank you for taking Clean Fairfax’s points into consideration as you move forward with rewriting this draft report to support not just the Recycling and fossil fuel/plastics  industries, but the residents of Virginia as well. Surveys have shown that we are at a time when Virginians are willing to pay for better environmental solutions, so it behooves us to lead with solutions, not to follow industry lobbyists down the plastic-strewn path to, well, an Advanced Recycling Facility. 

Definition of recycling

Recycling is intended to be a cyclical process. As stated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), “A circular economy keeps materials, products, and services in circulation for as long as possible.” A true circular economy is dependent on a robust mechanical recycling industry to create a system with minimal waste. Taking this approach to bolster markets for glass, metal, and cardboard recycling markets is critical to improving Virginia’s recycling rates.

Melting plastics to be used as additives for fossil fuels (advanced recycling) is a linear system, and these processes are not considered recycling by the EPA. In fact, the EPA specifically outlines that “Activities that convert non-hazardous solid waste to fuels or fuel substitutes (“plastics-to-fuel”) or for energy production are not considered to be ‘recycling’ activities.” This includes pyrolysis, gasification, chemical conversion, and all other plastic-to-fuel technologies. (Language is modified from the EPA Draft National Strategy to Prevent Plastic Pollution).

Changes to population and the waste stream 

How has this changed in the past 30 yrs. As our population has grown, are we recycling more per person? Are we generally using more per person? How has the change in materials impacted recycling, contamination rates, waste management costs and total waste?

Source reduction should not be included in recycling rates

This should not be included in recycling rates. It should be included in the report but credits should not factored into recycling rates. Source reduction is critical but SWPUs should have separate minimums in reduction. These economic and environmental impacts would be helpful to have presented. 

Industrial vs consumer

Most litter comes from post consumer waste yet there is no clear information on how much post consumer waste is recycled v landfilled. Metal and yard waste are clearly heavier and more likely to be industrial than household waste so it skews how well consumers recycle. 

Contamination

The report does not explain how contamination or lack of end markets are calculated into the recycling rate. Intent to recycle is not the same as actual recycling. Ultimately, people recycle things that should not be recycled and sometimes there is no market for a material that has been collected. Less valuable recyclables sometimes are landfilled due to virgin material costing less. 

 This report should clarify if the contaminated waste was:

• counted in both categories (recycling and landfill), 

• reported as recycled but not landfilled

• or contamination weights were reported and the total weights for recycling and sw were adjusted accordingly. 

If the contamination rate is not calculated and it is assumed everything that is collected is indeed recycled then many of the calculations would be incorrect. 

1. Contamination or lack of an end market increases emissions and energy use. Items go through transport, sorting, cleaning etc. to ultimately end up in a landfill.

2. Better understanding inefficiencies in the system is critical to determining Virginia’s state of recycling. 

3. How much money is wasted through contamination or lack of end market? Is this calculated into the economic benefits and environmental impacts?

Clarification on this point would highlight the impact of contamination which is an expressed issue raised by Virginia recyclers that manage comingled materials.  

Material Recycling Rates

A shortcoming of this report is that it does not indicate a recycling rate by material. It calculated a breakdown of all recyclables and their share of the total recycling weight. This is quite different from the material recycling rate. 

This provides an incomplete picture of where Virginia’s recycling really stands, in particular when it comes to costly household recycling programs. This is critical information because it informs how well we are actually doing with each material and the potential for growth, material source reduction, or increased financial support from producers of materials to more efficiently process Virginia’s waste.  

1. What materials are processed? What is the rate of recyclability (what materials can be recycled if collected properly vs what materials must be landfilled) of the materials?

2. What percent of a material recovered is ultimately landfilled? 

3. What has no end market? Where are we losing on investment of infrastructure?

4. Where could we be investing in order to better recycle high value materials?