CHESAPEAKE, Va. — Every year millions of Americans come together for America Recycles Day.
It’s a chance to look at your recycling habits.
Its why I visited the biggest recycling center in Hampton Roads to see how we can all make some changes for the better.
“People love recycling. It's a little step every day that people can do to make a huge difference for many years to come.”
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Michael Benedetto is the president and owner of TFC recycling.
He told me Hampton Roads is doing a great job with it.
“The amount of material we're recycling is at or above the national average,” he told me
TFC provides curbside recycling for more than 60,000 homes in Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Suffolk, Hampton, and the Outer Banks, along with other areas in the state.
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“Some people get the wrong message, and that is that the material is winding up in the landfill,” said Benedetto. “And nothing could be further from the truth.”
Chesapeake was recently on that list-but residents voted against it.
“The referendum in Chesapeake, we've got feedback from residents. It wasn't that they don't like recycling. They did not want to pay a fee.”
On a tour of their multimillion-dollar facility, he showed us how paper, plastic, cardboard, and more are all sorted by mechanical screens, pneumatic jets, magnets, and even optical sorters that us AI to separate materials and high-density balers that compact their recycling so they can sell it to the marketplace.
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“95% of the recycling we don't actually have to touch,” he told me. “The technology is pretty reliable, and it does a great job of trying to do what we want to do again, which makes recycling efficient and effective.
But even with all of that technology, human error can still sometimes cause them problems.
One of the biggest issues that they see here at the recycling center are plastic bags. These do not go in your recycling bin; they have to get separated and recycled in a different way.
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Benedetto calls it “wishcycling.”
“They want to think that this material could be recycled, and when they put it in the container, it makes them feel a little bit better that maybe it will get captured, at least I put it in the recycling container.”
The wrong items get separated and still end up in the landfill.
It’s one of the reasons they created their Start Smart, Recycle Right campaign with the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission to help educate the public and simplify recycling.
“They received a $2 million grant from the EPA. So they're going to be having people out in the street actually looking inside of recycling carts and communicating with people if the wrong items are inside there. And then they'll also have information education, if you will, that will go to residents to remind them how to start smart and recycle right.”
Benedetto tells me that education and outreach will go a long way in making a difference when it comes to recycling—and a healthier environment for all.
“Recycling does work, and it works really well,” he said. “We can all do our part to make a difference.”
