Fairfax County’s Department of Public Works and Environmental Services (DPWES) is working to develop a new 20-year plan for managing solid waste.
The county produces roughly 1.2 million tons of trash every year, processing about 630,000 tons as municipal solid waste (MSW). Currently, about 43.9% of waste is diverted from incineration. However, the county adopted a Community-wide Energy and Climate Action Plan (CECAP) that set a goal of 90% diversion by 2040.
“So, that’s moving all of the waste streams that are currently inside of Fairfax County out of the landfill and out of the incinerator,” Matt Adams, director of the DPWES solid waste management program, told the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors during an environmental committee meeting on May 14.
With a waste composition study last month, DPWES found that approximately 83% of municipal solid waste is material that could be recycled. To reach the CECAP goal of 90%, the county has to “catch 100%” of the trash and recyclables that go into trash, Adams said.
“Approximately 500,000 tons of waste that is currently processed as MSW needs to find a new reuse or a new home as a recoverable material,” he said.
The average resident generates about one ton of trash per year, but that’s expected to trend upwards as the population increases.
“We are looking at an estimated 1.4 million tons of waste by 2040 and 1.5, probably, by 2060,” Adams added.
According to Adams, the county has to make substantial investments in infrastructure to meet the diversion goal. He proposed several “transformational zero waste strategies,” including:
- Education, engagement, evaluation and enforcement
- Unified sanitation districts
- Mandatory recycling and composting
- “Pay as You Throw”
- Comprehensive programs for commercial and multi-family properties
- Zero waste centers
The proposal to establish unified sanitation districts would involve providing contracted hauling for all Fairfax County residents. Currently, the county only provides trash collection services for about 10% of residents, while most community members utilize private haulers.
A “Pay as You Throw” system would institute a variable pricing model that charges customers based on how much waste they need collected, so producing less trash would save customers money and reduce waste, according to DPWES spokesperson Sharon North.
Adams noted there are several ways to implement that approach, such as charging by weight or the size of purchased bags or trash containers, but DPWES is evaluating the best option.
“We’re currently in the process of analyzing each one of these strategies to look at cost, potential diversion impact, milestones to be completed, equity impacts,” he said.
One of the first steps in updating the solid waste management plan is the creation of focus groups with communities that would be most affected by any changes — a step that’s already underway. A public input campaign is scheduled to start in July and run for 3o days.
“It will be an open public input survey out to everyone, and it will be a large outreach campaign so that everyone in the county will be able to participate,” Adams said.
Board of Supervisors Chairman Jeff McKay questioned if that timeline is long enough to allow for sufficient public response.
“I’m expecting there to be a significant amount of public input that we’d need time to process,” McKay said.
A new 20-year solid waste management plan is due to the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality by next April.
