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Fairfax County’s familiar blue curbside bins mask a troubling trend: The county’s overall recycling rate declined in 2024, leaving it far from its ambitious waste-reduction targets.
The Environmental Quality Advisory Council reported that 44.7% of collected waste was recycled in 2024. That was four percentage points below the previous 10-year average of 48.7%. The recycled share of total waste fell by six percent, while paper and cardboard recycling dropped by 26%.
Those numbers pose a challenge for the Board of Supervisors, which adopted a goal of reducing waste by 90% by 2040 in its 2021 Community-wide Energy and Climate Action Plan. The Joint Environmental Task Force called for reaching the same target by 2030.
“We need consistency in what can be recycled and accountability for actually recycling,” said Eric Goplerud, an at-large EQAC member who wrote the council report’s waste chapter.
Major Waste Streams Remain Under-Recycled
Recycling turns discarded materials into new products. Glass collected in Fairfax County can become new bottles or construction material, while recovered paper and cardboard can be manufactured into new paper goods.
The county already recovers substantial amounts of several materials, including 64% of yard waste, 78% of construction debris and more than half of metals. Other common materials fare much worse.
Only 5% of food waste is recovered, along with 25% of paper, 27% of glass and 31% of waste wood, according to EQAC. Those materials account for a significant share of what is still burned or sent to landfills.
Glass, food waste, construction debris and metals recorded notable increases in recycling, while yard-waste recovery remained steady. Even with the improvement in glass, roughly three-quarters of it is still not recycled, Goplerud said.
Plastic-Bag Tax Cuts Use, but Millions Remain
Plastic-bag use declined 2.5% from 2022 to 2023 and another 5% from 2023 to 2024. Recycling advocates have linked the reductions to Fairfax County’s five-cent disposable-bag tax, which retailers began collecting in 2022.
The tax generated $7.7 million between January 2022 and mid-2025. By December 2024, shoppers were using more than 3.4 million fewer bags, but more than 32 million remained in circulation that year, according to EQAC. The council warned that discarded bags continue to collect along county streets, trees and waterways.
Many Northern Virginia grocery stores accept plastic bags for separate recycling. Companies such as Winchester-based Trex use recovered plastic to manufacture composite decking and other products.
Reduction and Reuse Come First
The Environmental Protection Agency ranks nonhazardous waste-management strategies by their environmental benefits. Reducing waste at its source is the preferred option, followed by recycling and composting.
Source reduction can include reusing or donating goods, purchasing in bulk, cutting packaging, redesigning products and limiting toxic materials. Recycling comes next and involves collecting discarded items, processing them into raw materials and using those materials in new products.
Energy recovery ranks below recycling. This process converts non-recyclable waste into heat, electricity or fuel. The Reworld facility in Lorton processes more than 1.12 million tons of waste and continuously generates 93 megawatts of electricity—enough to power 67,000 homes for a year.
Treatment and disposal are the least-preferred options. Shredding and incineration can reduce the volume or toxicity of waste, while landfilling remains the most common disposal method.
Fairfax County operates two major waste facilities: the I-66 Transfer Station and the I-95 Landfill Complex.
Officials Consider New Incentives and Requirements
EQAC recommended seeking state authority to require waste haulers to collect organic material. Delegate Kathy Tran and Sen. Scott Surovell have introduced legislation intended to encourage composting.
The council also supports legislation allowing counties and towns to prohibit disposable plastic bags.
Goplerud pointed to jurisdictions where haulers inspect recycling bins and reject containers that do not comply with local rules. He also suggested a “pay-to-throw” system that would charge residents based on the weight or size of their mixed trash.
“The more mixed trash you throw in the bin the more you pay,” he said. “We need to create incentives for people to do the right thing.”
Virginia does not have a bottle-deposit law requiring refundable payments on certain beverage containers. Another potential policy, extended producer responsibility, would make manufacturers responsible for managing products at the end of their useful lives, though EQAC did not address that approach in its report.
Matt Adams, a Fairfax County waste-management director, said inconsistent and insufficient participation by waste generators is the largest obstacle to improving the recycling rate. He called for residents and businesses to divert more organic material, recyclables, construction and demolition debris, and difficult-to-recycle products.
Jen Cole of the litter-prevention organization Clean Fairfax said the reasons for declines in some categories remain unclear. Still, she welcomed the sharp growth in glass and food-waste recovery, crediting county initiatives and residents’ environmental commitment.