Recycling can be… Complicated. Frustrating. Expletive inducing? Every city and county has a different set of recycling guidelines depending on infrastructure, haulers and local policy. This can create real confusion for citizens who are just trying to do good. In Fairfax County, we have a dozen or so haulers, all with their own requirements. That’s a lot of conflicting messages. We love Fairfax County Environment Facebook page’s effort to share what is and isn’t recyclable, but many residents aren’t serviced by the county. Our own website on recycling is, well, admittedly a bit lacking because of the complex nature of the issue. We’re working on it.

In our opinion, the best solution to this issue is probably a search plug-in that tells you if an item is recyclable after you enter the name of the item as well as which disposal company you use. This will take intensive ground-truthing and coordination, so please be patient while we develop that.

Until then, courtesy of Sally Carter (who has gone great lengths to figure this out), enjoy this awesome list of FFX County Recycling Guidelines! Note that it was assembled with guidance from the following sources:

• The county’s Public Works and Environmental Services’ Index of Residential Materials and the “The Fairfax Recycler” e-newsletter
• American Disposal Services’ Acceptable Recycling Materials and the information they share during tours of their facility in Manassas.

Also, a shout out to MOM’s and Whole Foods, both of which have wonderful recycling programs of their own.