“Resource Recover Center” was added to the name of the Virginia Beach City Landfill to highlight the wide variety of services offered there, and to help educate all Virginia Beach residents of the opportunities to make the most of their discards. Discards don’t have to be trash. Virginia Beach curbside and drop off recycling programs are award winning and have tremendous community support, but are just the beginning to overall Waste Minimization. Donate what can be donated. Recycle what can be recycled. Responsibly dispose of those items, such as Household Hazardous Waste, that cannot be donated or recycled. Goodwill was selected to provide donation boxes on site as part of the Resource Recovery Center. In addition to the regular recycling drop off boxes, “Other Recycling Options” are continuously being developed and currently include all types of metal, electronics such as computers and cell phones, batteries, rigid plastics, oyster shells, dirt, concrete, and more. Resource recovery is not only good for the environment, but it also reduces disposal costs. Waste Management tripled the amount of hard plastics in four months. That’s material that could have ended up being landfilled instead of recycled. Resource Recovery is a good, responsible option for disposing of these materials. Virginia Beach Waste Management worked with VBTV to develop a video on Resource Recovery that aired on the station and is available online on Waste Management’s recently updated website, www.VBgov.com/landfill. Additional marketing and promotion is planned.
This blog post submitted by Linda S. Minner, APR, City of Virginia Beach Recycling Coordinator and John C. Barnes, City of Virginia Beach Waste Management Administrator.