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Contact us:
422 E. Franklin St.
Richmond, VA 23221
(804) 225-9113
Glen Besa, Chapter
Director

Recycling & Solid Waste

Background of Issue

The disposal of waste in Virginia totaled 25.2 million tons in 2003, of which 16.7 million tons was “municipal solid waste” or MSW. In 2003, Virginia landfills and incinerators disposed of 6.6 million tons of out of state waste, over 26 % of total disposal. But not all of our problems are caused by other states. A January 1996 report commissioned by the General Assembly estimated the clean up costs for abandoned waste sites in the Commonwealth at between $277 million and $670 million, and no state money has been allocated to deal with this problem. Virginia has no comprehensive statewide planning for waste management or cleanup of past problems. There is a mandatory recycling rate of 25%, but in 2006, the legislature lowered the rate to 15% for rural areas. Localities prepare and submit plans but are not asked to set goals to reduce disposal amounts and there is no penalty for failing to fulfill even these weak plans. Because of the low cost of waste disposal, Virginia ranks as one of the cheapest states in the nation to dispose of waste, encourages imports and the poor use of natural resources, and burdens taxpayers with cleanup costs.

Recommendations:

The following are recommended state level actions to reduce the amount of waste landfilled or incinerated in Virginia. The Sierra Club also recommends that individual and collective actions can greatly reduce trash production by making different choices of packaging, increased reuse, composting, and increased recycling.

  1. Strengthen Virginia’s solid waste planning regulations, and develop a comprehensive 20 year state-wide waste management plan. Through a combination of goals, incentives and penalties, seek to improve the performance of waste reduction and recycling programs to reduce the amount of waste that is directed to waste disposal facilities. Virginia needs a state-wide waste management plan to adequately reduce, reuse, and recycle; and to better manage waste disposal and prevent future problems. The opportunities of a recycling economy should be sought as a displacement of a disposal economy.

  2. Establish a replacement for the Landfill Closure and cleanup fund. The old fund was abolished in the 2004 General Assembly session. A new fund should be created to provide a depository for clean-up funds, and expanded to provide funding for waste reduction and recycling programs, state-wide comprehensive waste planning, increased inspection and enforcement, and to provide a source of revenue to address the many waste-related problems facing the Commonwealth.

  3. Establish a disposal fee levied by facility operators per ton of waste deposited in landfills or incinerated. The fee should support local and state waste reduction and recycling programs, as well as a special revenue fund earmarked for waste management programs, including enforcement and landfill cleanup and closure, as well as mitigating air pollution problems from waste incinerators. Under no circumstances should the funds be used for purposes unrelated to waste management.

  4. Cut the Importation of Out-of-State Waste. Virginia is the number two importer of out-of-state waste. Preliminary numbers show another large increase in out-of-state waste in 2004. Every year, Virginia now imports more than one ton of out-of-state trash for every man, woman, and child in the Commonwealth. Reducing the amount of waste shipped into Virginia from New York and other states reduces the cost of new landfill construction in Virginia, removes traffic-clogging trash trucks from our roads, and reduces the chances of an expensive and harmful trash spill in the James River. There are federal restrictions that limit Virginia’s ability to ban out of state trash, but there are still steps that we can take to reduce the amount of other people’s trash that we receive: advocate for congressional legislation to give states more powers to control trash imports, accept only out-of-state trash from states with the same safety standards that Virginia has, connect new permit approvals to in-state need, and enforce safety regulations on trucks and barges carrying trash in Virginia.