Alexandria's New Plastic Recycling Procedures

A new Guide to Services is issued for recycling, composting, and trash and yard waste disposal

Should plastic drink containers or waxed cardboard milk cartons be recycled with their plastic caps on or off? Are black or translucent plastic food containers recyclable? Are clear plastic produce containers recyclable? Why do plastic shopping bags have to be returned to grocery stories or other retailers?

The Resource Recovery Division of Alexandria’s Department of Transportation & Environmental Services seeks to clarify the answers to these questions and identify best practices to maintain a “livable, green and thriving community” in its new guidebook on recycling, yard waste and trash collection, and composting. The guidelines apply to residents who receive city trash services.

The 27-page guidebook can be seen and downloaded

The guidebook was published and implemented in late June, according to Howard Lee, an environmental program manager at T&ES.

Howard Lee of T&ES

Lee said that all Alexandria residents who receive city trash services were mailed a postcard announcing the guide’s release; he said that the postcard was not sent to apartments, condominiums or homeowners associations.

What Has Changed This Year

In a change from T&ES’ 2023 Guide to Services, plastic cups, trays and containers, such as take-out containers or plastic fruit containers, are now recyclable, but they must be clean.

“Plastic cups, take out containers, and plastic food containers can be recycled ONLY if there is no food residue and the item is thoroughly rinsed,” the guidebook states.

The 2025 Guide to Services also contains new information in a section titled “Organics” about the transition of the current curbside composting program from a pilot initiative to a subsidized city service. As of July 1, residents receiving city trash and recycling collection could opt in to compost collection for $5 per month or $55 per year.

“[W]e improved the overall layout to help residents find information more easily, along with enhanced digital versions on our website,” Lee said in a July 15 email. “We’ve received over 1,000 website views of the digital guide, and we’ve had about 100 requests for the printed version since the mailing.”

The Impact of Plastics on the Global Environment

The massive quantity of discarded plastic is a national and international environmental issue.

On July 1, The New York Times reported that Malaysia, “… which received more discarded plastic from rich nations than another developing country last year, effectively banned all shipments of plastic waste from the United States.”

The Times cited a 2018 decision by China to ban imports of wastepaper and plastic as a driver in Malaysia’s decision to reject plastic imports. According to the Times, prior to 2018, China had for years accepted as much as half the world’s discarded plastic and paper.

“The United States recycles less than 10% of the plastic it discards,” the Times article reads. “[T]he world produces nearly a half-billion tons of plastic each year, more than double the amount from two decades ago, and a growing amount of plastic waste is turning up on coastlines and river banks, as well as in whales, birds and other animals that ingest them. Researchers have estimated that one garbage truck’s worth of plastic enters the ocean every minute.”

Alexandria’s Mr. Recycling

Lee oversees Alexandria’s recycling program. A graphic designer with a marketing degree, Lee has worked for T&ES for three years, first as an analyst and for the last year as a program manager.

“I decided to focus my work and energy on sustainable companies and people who were doing green work,” Lee said in a July 3 interview.

“Recycling is a hard thing, particularly with plastics – there is just a lot of information about plastics that people don’t know,” Lee said. “It can be confusing, but it is made confusing for us. … [The plastics industry is] looking to get raw material to create another product; they’re not really focused on how we are using those materials, or the packaging, or… end use.”

How Plastic Recycling Works

A consumer’s use of a plastic product – a bag, container or cling wrap – creates a commodity, or raw material, valued according to its market.

Whether a plastic product is recyclable depends on the laws and policies of the jurisdiction in which the item is used or disposed of. The numbers stamped inside the triangular recycling symbol on containers are an industry signal or code that identifies a plastic product’s commodity type.

Some produce suppliers now apply labels to containers that confirm that recyclability is determined by localities by showing a “Check Locally” legend inside the triangular recycling symbol.

Plastic grocery bags, food storage bags and cling wrap are generally identified as No. 4 plastics, which can be recycled into another product like Trex outdoor decking. However, this type of plastic is not suitable for recycling facilities. Plastic bags, wraps and films clog sorting equipment and are identified in T&ES’ new guidebook as, “… often the No. 1 contaminant found in the city’s recycling stream.”

Lee said that the best practice is to return plastic bags in a “bag of bags” to grocery stores or other retailers. Stores combine customer-returned plastic bags with shrink wrap and other flexible plastics used to package and ship merchandise. These flexible plastics are then delivered to recyclers.

Plastic beverage containers and food storage containers provided by restaurants are generally either No. 1 or No. 5 plastics.

Lee said that after being collected at the curb in TE&S’ blue bins, recycled items go to a material recovery facility that sorts recycled material. Alexandria’s recycling goes to a MRF in Manassas. Other MRFs are in Fairfax County, Prince George’s County and Elkridge, Maryland where conveyor belts carry material to 18 sorters that operate simultaneously to sort tons of material.

Sorting at a MRF is partially by hand and partially by optical sorters, magnets, and blown air, all of which separate types of recyclable material. Recycled materials are bailed by type of commodity, for example, #1 or #5 or #7 plastic.

There is a different market for each type of recycled plastic. Lee said that markets for recycled materials shift “quarterly or yearly.” For example, #2 plastic rose in value a few years ago when the Biden Administration’s infrastructure bill created an increased demand for plastic pipe. Cardboard, which homeowners should flatten prior to recycling, is also a relatively high-value item.

Aspirational or “wish” recycling—the placement of material in recycling on the hope that it is recyclable—may not be a major problem. Lee said that 92 % of what goes in Alexandria’s blue bins will be recycled, meaning sorted and bailed. The remainder is disposed of as trash.

“Overall, we’re diverting 53 to 54% of our waste to somewhere other than landfill,” Lee said. “Alexandria residents do very well…in putting the correct items in recycling.”

“Our MRF is happy,” Lee said. The city’s current recycling contractor is Republic Services of Manassas.

Lee said while Alexandria residents generally do a good job at recycling, language barriers and resident turnover mean that TE&S’ outreach and education effort about recycling and solid waste disposal is a continuing endeavor.

The city earns rebates based on a percentage of the value of certain recycled products, for example, cardboard which is considered a high value item. The value of the rebates, Lee said, is about $30,000 a month. The rebates reduce the City’s cost of pickup and disposal.

Lee points out that stretchy plastic film is recyclable, but it is up to the homeowner to make sure it is clean and to take it to a retailer. The same is true of bags or garment covers from dry cleaners.

Sortable plastic items must be more than 3” by 3” so plastic bottle caps or sealing rings from cardboard milk cartons are not, by themselves, recyclable because they are too small for the sorting system at the MRF.

Lee recommends creating a single recyclable item by inserting plastic caps or sealing rings, many of which are #2 plastic, in a capped recyclable plastic container.

Clam shells made with fiber that restaurants provide for leftovers are usually made from recycled material. According to Lee, these containers should be composted.

Polystyrene, or Styrofoam, which can be formed as pellets, packing material, or food containers, still eludes recycling and is disposed of as trash.

Styrofoam disposal has been identified as an environmental problem by the Virginia General Assembly. On July 1 2025, a provision of Section 10.1-1424.3 (A) of the Virginia Code became effective. The statute states, “Beginning July 1, 2025, no food vendor of any type shall dispense prepared food to a customer in an expanded polystyrene food service container.”

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