At least one Fairfax County supervisor isn’t giving up on a push for bringing all residential trash collection under the purview of the county government.
“I hope we can look at it again. I want to have the conversation we never really had,” Mount Vernon District Supervisor Dan Storck said at a July 7 meeting of the Board of Supervisors’ Environmental Committee.
In May, supervisors pulled the plug on a staff proposal to begin consideration of unified sanitary districts that would allow the county to directly contract private haulers for all single-family and townhome properties.
Currently, about 10% of property owners have their trash and recyclables collected by the county government. The vast majority of county residents use private haulers hired either individually or by a homeowners’ or community association.
Under state law, a locality has to provide five years’ notice before switching to a government-run system. In late 2024, Fairfax staff proposed starting the clock in 2025, with the goal of having a unified trash district in place by 2030.
But concerns raised by the public and and within the industry caused supervisors to walk away from that proposal for now, if not necessarily forever.
Just because the concept was shelved “does not mean it will never be on the table,” Providence District Supervisor Dalia Palchik, who chairs the Environmental Committee, said at the July 7 meeting.
“We can absolutely look at it again,” Palchik said.
Storck suggested the Mount Vernon District could be used as the backdrop for a pilot program, to see how local government regulation of residential trash collection would play out.
Following the committee meeting, staff from Storck’s office followed up with Christopher Herrington, director of the county’s Department of Public Works and Environmental Services.
Herrington said his office is evaluating options that could help the county achieve its waste management goals in the absence of a unified sanitation district.
“At Supervisor Storck’s request, county staff are evaluating potential pilot programs within the county’s existing authority,” he said. “This is still in early concept stages, and no action would be taken without further public conversation with the Board of Supervisors and the community.”
Neither Loudoun nor Prince William counties provide trash collection services, although localities within their boundaries can do so. Arlington County and the cities of Alexandria and Falls Church mandate that residential collection be through their local governments, rather than via private haulers.
