How to recycle properly in Richmond, Virginia
You’re probably making your entire recycling load unusable. GREAT JOB, EARTHLING. Here’s how to do it right!
Update #1 — May 26, 2016; 11:07 AM
Huge news!
According to the Central Virginia Waste Management Authority, as of July 1st, we will now be able to recycle plastics 1-7 of all sizes AND plastic-coated milk/juice containers!
IT IS LIKE A DREAM COME TRUE, GUYS!
We’ve updated the below information accordingly. Just imagine a big huge thumbs up on a pile of all of your plastic.
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Original — April 22, 2016
What we can recycle municipally
According to the CVWMA website, Richmonders can recycle:
Corrugated cardboard boxes (break them down, please!)
Paper, like newspapers, magazines, catalogs, computer paper, junk mail, cereal boxes and other paperboard packaging, and paper bags
Steel and aluminum cans
Crush ’em if you can!
#1-#7 plastic of all shapes and sizes
This is a big change from our previous “only #1 and #2 plastics of the narrow-neck bottle variety” limitations! Throw it all in there, folks!
Glass bottles and jars of the clear, blue, brown, and green varieties
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What we can’t recycle
If you throw these in with your regular recycling, you run the risk of having a bunch of legit things rejected, too!
Plastic bags
A nice day, indeed! I’ve been doing an experiment this year and have successfully avoided bringing any plastic bags into my house. Zero! All you have to say is “I don’t need the bag,” and everyone is fine.
Styrofoam
Food-contaminated items
Paper products like towels and tissues
Their quality of paper is too low, and also, gross. I was not about to pick those out of our trash.
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Susan Howson
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Gatorade bottles and gallon milk jugs ???
This is super helpful. I recently learned that they don’t take pizza boxes (food contaminated things), but doesn’t that cut out like, your tin cans and a bunch of other stuff too?
part 2–they aren’t consistent with pick up, so by the time they do pick it up (yes I call and remind them almost every time) someone walking by has thrown trash in the recycling so they can no longer pick it up. beyond irritating.
@Brandon – Both are OK!
@end rant – You’re just supposed to wash it out! Don’t let that be a barrier, though!
Very few people know about the plastic rules. Thanks for putting this altogether for folks to gleam some knowledge from!
Now how can we get all of our great restaurants to start using better, easier to recycle to-go products? Not that restaurants are the only contributors, but in the day to day realm it’s where I see the most preventable waste.
Please forward this to relay Foods who tells me the light weight plastic boxes they put my food in are recyclable. Maybe they will believe you.
Richmond area recycling options are inadequate and confusing. All plastics #1, #2 and #5 should be recyclable as they are in many other communities. The myriad of exceptions that are outlined in this posting unfortunately confuse many and lead to sloppy recycling or, worse, recycling avoidance altogether.
Not being able to recycle clean 1 and 2 food containers such as a strawberry container IS the reason recycling in the long run will be a failed proposition as it is currently becoming
I had no idea that food containers…even 1 and 2’s are not supposed to be included. I always rinsed mined and recycled them. Why is it that they can take #1 bottles and not #1 containers?
While recycling has a lot of good points, how about instead of driving each other crazy over little numbers on different kinds of plastic, we pressure the corporations to stop producing so much plastic in the first place? When will local governments do what other governments around the world are already doing and ban plastic bags, bottles, and other crap that is degrading our environment? We need to start setting higher standards for environmental action.
We have been very impressed by the CVWMA service. REALLY like the new large and lidded containers, we have and use to. The rules are extremely confusing as the folks above noted, and even the crews don’t all know what’s up, e.g., they tell me I can leave the caps on my water jugs (NO!). The process does seem better than years ago when the Times-Disgrace ran a photo of a recycling truck dumping alongside all the other trash trucks. I still don’t understand why we pay an extra fee for recycling…and the newer fee for water “run-off”. If the idea is to encourage more recycling, maybe some sort of incentive to use the trash less could be considered, like C’ville has/had a “pay as you throw” sticker plan, etc.
Question for author: can you please explain the process where they throw out recyclable stuff if it’s with non-recycleables? This is really interesting.
I’m with Steve – Why is it that they can take #1 bottles and not #1 containers?
We recycle just about everything we can (and now finding out that the Talenti ice cream containers and #1 berry containers can’t be recycled?), but if the number system isn’t sufficient, then Charlie’s right – it’s destined to be a failure. Maybe not in participation, but in the end result.
If nothing else, I’ll continue to separate all the metal cans and lids and take them to a metal recycler. It’s ridiculous that metal lids can’t be recycled. Steel bottle caps- I put them in a larger steel can and fold the top over. I’d read that was acceptable, but maybe not specifically to CVWMA.
This makes me kind of mad. Everything that had a recycle symbol on it, is not recyclable even though I rinsed it and cleaned it. Ive been doing this for years thinking I was making a difference. I just learned, out of everything I use only a few things qualify and I thought I was helping. What’s the point? I quit using water bottles so I guess now I can recycle a few cans and some card board at Christmas time. 3/4 of the things I buy from the store have a recycle symbol on it and it will end up in a land fill. after reading this.