Editor’s Note: Clean Fairfax occasionally works with people who need to complete community service hours ahead of a court date. This summer, we were approached by a person who had gotten pulled over and ticketed for littering a cigarette butt. They spent 25 hours cleaning up trash in and around their neighborhood, and this experience inspired them to share this article with other members of the community.

Ever since an assembly at school when I was in fourth grade, I have been environmentally conscious. I have been an avid recycler since I got a car at sixteen. Back then, you had to separate the recycling and drive it somewhere to drop each type of material into bins. For the last seven years, I have also picked up trash in my neighborhood every week after trash day because the animals inevitably get into it and spew trash around the neighborhood. I had quit smoking for thirteen years but recently started again. Although I was very conscious of doing my part for the environment, cigarette butts were a different story. I figured I couldn’t put an ashtray in my car because it would smell really bad, so I would throw them out the window, subconsciously thinking they were so small, what impact could they make?

I did just that one day and was pulled over by a police officer for littering. He gave me a ticket and I thought I could just mail in a fine and that would be that. When I saw a court date on the ticket I asked if I could just mail in the payment. During that conversation I realized this is a criminal misdemeanor and I would have to appear before a judge. Boy was I surprised! I have a business working with kids and I cannot have a misdemeanor on my record, so this threatened my entire livelihood. My friends and family could not believe that I of all people got a littering charge, but that’s where my thoughtlessness around smoking got me.

I called a lawyer as soon as I got home and paid him $700.00, knowing that I could also end up owing a fine of up to $2,500. He told me to voluntarily do community service before my court date and there was a judge in Fairfax County who would put everyone in jail for 30 days for littering. Cue more shock! I had a month to do community service and all the while I was terrified that I could possibly go to jail, lose my income, let down my team who would no longer have their jobs, and I could have a record and a huge fine to pay. I knew I deserved it so I braced for the worst.

I spent 25 hours picking up trash for Clean Fairfax in my area during the intense summer heat. Driving through my community, it looks pretty clean. Once I got up close, it was filthy. The amount of trash on the streets and sidewalks was just awful. I was quite shocked at the amount of single use trash. Whether it was a McDonald’s cup, a Chik-Fil-A bag with food containers inside, napkins, straw wrappers (sooooo many straw wrappers,) small alcohol bottles–on and on the list went. Almost everything I picked up was a single use item from food and drink establishments like Starbucks or Panera, which means the individual impact of throwing one or two things out onto the street, or an overflowing trash can that no one empties for weeks, makes the biggest impact. The closer I physically got to a store that served food or drinks, the more trash there was to pick up. It was so obvious what was causing all the trash accumulation. It was rarely big items I picked up, almost always small things, clearly caused by individuals throwing one thing here or one thing there, or not bothering to pick something up that didn’t quite make it into the trash can.

The second most common items I picked up were smoking related, including cigarette butts, lighters, empty cigarette packs, or items like the plastic ends of black and milds. There was very little smoking related trash in residential areas, but still a great amount of single use items. I could not believe the amount of butts on the streets and sidewalks. The bus stops were most definitely the worst for trash and for butts, and they even have a trash can at each stop. I learned that cigarette butts wreak havoc on the environment because they slowly leak a chemical cocktail of highly toxic and carcinogenic substances into soils, waterways, lakes, and oceans.

Once I was pulled over, I knew I was never going to throw a butt out the window again, but I didn’t realize until that day how simple the solution was. I was not going to get an ashtray due to the smell. BUT, the easiest and simplest solution was to just get a water bottle, half filled, and put each butt in there. How simple!!!! Of course. If I had bothered to put any thought into it at all, I could have figured that out. Instead, for one month, I worried every day about my career and income, having a criminal record, possibly paying $3,200 total, and maybe even going to jail. How ludicrous when all I needed was a water bottle. I also had to shorten my summer vacation because I had to be back in town for court. How I cursed myself for being so stupid.

I knew I was guilty, I was not going to deny it, so I did expect the worst going before the judge. I have never been so nervous in my life. By the grace of God, I stood before the judge and it was dismissed. I deserved worse, but I was incredibly thankful that my team and I were still going to have jobs and I paid $700 in total instead of $3,200.

Although I never would have littered any other item, I hope someone reads this and understands the impact that cigarette butts and all the other trash we generate have on our water and soil. I also hope to make people understand that, for example, throwing just one McDonald’s cup out the window or onto the street, is causing a pile up of trash and making our community disgusting. We all have to live here, it’s all ours, and we should each do our part to keep it clean. 

How I wish we as a society could somehow stop making so many single use items and for people to do their part and go out every now and then and pick up trash. I can see now that it would make a monumental impact on all of us and our communities. I am now aware that littering is against the law in the state of Virginia and expensive, so if nothing else motivates citizens, let it be that. Awareness is important.

Signed,

Lesson Learned!

Ever wonder what exactly it is we do at Clean Fairfax? Or how we possibly get it all done? Our Executive Director, Jen Cole, sat down with EcoPrint last month for a feature article about the Council on its blog, which you can find here!

https://www.ecoprint.com/blog/2023/06/clean-fairfax-makes-environmental-clean-up-easy/

Most of us are very familiar with the prefix “bio.” It often indicates a reference to living plants or creatures, and it connotes images of the earth, its many life forms, and perhaps a few scenes from Planet Earth or National Geographic images. But the prefix bio as it’s used in the marketing of new plastics–think: “bioplastics,” “biodegradable plastics,” etc.–is not the innovative, earth-friendly process it sounds like. This is yet another case of greenwashing in the plastics industry. 

To businesses, the green aura given off by bioplastics is an advantage, helping to reconcile busy consumers to the polymers we use every day. In environmental terms, that’s precisely the problem: they risk absolving us of the need to carry out the basic work of reducing, reusing and recycling. Ultimately, that’s the only way that we’ll deal with our plastics addiction.

David Fickling, Bloomberg

A recent article from Bloomberg highlighted how biodegradable plastics may in fact do more harm than good. According to the article, some types of bio–or plant-based–plastics may release more carbon in degradation than their fossil fuel-derived counterparts. Moreover, the author notes how the degradation of plastic is an invisible process, which doesn’t quite evoke the same response as oceans and lands visibly littered with plastic. Without public knowledge of the drawbacks and consequences of plastics sent to indefinitely degrade in landfills (including the majority of innovative plant-based ones), the out-of-sight, out-of-mind mentality will remain securely in place in our high-consumption society.

Emissions from plastic degradation — an invisible process taking place deep underground, and producing no emotive imagery of floating debris, tangled turtles or overflowing waste dumps — may be far more insidious. Bioplastics “are not permanent solutions because they still reaffirm the take-make-waste linear economy mindset,” said Alice Zhu, a researcher into plastic pollution at the University of Toronto.

David Fickling, Bloomberg

Again, the solution to the plastic problem is not to continue to produce more or different types of plastic, it’s to produce less. To cut off this stream of pollution at the source. To turn off the tap!

December 21st is National Crossword Puzzle Day, so we invite all you cruciverbalists out there to try your hand at our’s: Let’s Get Green and Clean (Fairfax)!

This crossword puzzle was created with https://crosswordlabs.com tool.

As the country celebrated another America Recycles Day this past week, we looked back at some of the new reports, major announcements, and state of recycling in the U.S. today. 

America (Doesn’t Really) Recycles Day

A Greenpeace report out at the end of last month exposed some ugly truths about plastic recycling in the U.S. which offer a sharp contrast to the celebrations of the 25th annual holiday.

According to the report, despite seeming advancements in the packaging, production, and greater plastic industries, the majority of plastic waste in the U.S. is still not recyclable. Worse still, the portion of plastic that actually is recyclable is being recycled less. Specifically, the report estimates the recycling rate in the U.S. “declined to about 5–6% in 2021, down from a high of 9.5% in 2014 and 8.7% in 2018, when the U.S. exported millions of tons of plastic waste to China and counted it as recycled even though much of it was burned or dumped” (Greenpeace, 2022). 

The report went on to discuss the 5 most impactful reasons that plastic recycling is failing in the U.S.:

1. Plastic waste is too widespread to collect – poor and outdated infrastructure makes collection of plastic waste very difficult.
2. Mixed plastic waste cannot be recycled together – with hundreds of different types of plastics, mixed recycling is not only impractical, but also not logistically feasible. Other concerns include contamination, limited use, and low demand for recycled plastic end-material.
3. Plastic recycling is wasteful, polluting, and is a fire hazard – it’s estimated that as much as a third of collected plastic bottles are deemed “contaminated” and consequently landfilled. Additionally, microplastics produced in the mechanical recycling process are discharged with wastewater to pollute the environment. Lastly, highly flammable plastic creates concern for fires at production & recycling facilities and their surrounding communities. 
4. Recycled plastic has huge toxicity risks – plastic products may contain and absorb toxic chemicals (e.g., motor oil, pesticides, bleach); mixed plastics recycling risks contaminating other recyclables in the process. This reality limits the applications for recycled material to be reused in food-grade packaging or bottling.
5. Plastic recycling is not economical – compared to new plastic production, it is far too costly to collect, sort, truck, and safely reprocess plastic waste.

Ultimately, this jam-packed report reminds us that the recycling industry in the U.S. still has a long way to go. If you’d like to read the report or listen to coverage about it, here are some great additional resources to peruse:

• Greenpeace report: Circular Claims Fall Flat Again.
• NPR investigative reporter Laura Sullivan explains the plastic problem and new Greenpeace report.
• Interview with Lisa Ramsden, WBUR Here & Now from Nov. 2, 2022.

EPA Announces New Grant Funding

This week, the U.S. EPA also announced that applications are now open to access $375 million in grant funding for solid waste infrastructure for recycling projects as well as recycling education and outreach efforts. The funding is open to state, local, and tribal governments. According to the EPA’s press announcement, this fund reflects “the largest EPA investment in recycling in 30 years” (EPA, 2022).

Plastic Sustainability Targets set to be Missed

A report from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and U.N. Environment Program released earlier this month revealed that a large majority of the world’s largest consumer goods (and plastics) producers are set to miss their 2025 target of using solely recyclable, reusable, or compostable packaging (U.S. News, 2022). Some of the brands–which include companies like Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Mars, Nestle, and Unilever–have demonstrated varied progress on updating their sustainability. But according to a spokesperson from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, despite progress from some companies, the majority still need to invest more in finding new packaging methods: “Flexible packaging waste is extremely hard to deal with, not generating it in the first place will need to be an important part of the solution…We won’t just recycle our way out” (Bloomberg, 2022).

Today, there seems to be no shortage of options when we browse the aisles of cleaning products at our local stores. But with so many options and flashy marketing, how does the eco-conscious consumer know what products are truly “green”?

“Greenwashing” is a popular marketing strategy employed to make products, or companies, seem more appealing to the conscientious customer base. Terms such as “green,” “natural,” “plant-based,” “non-toxic,” “eco-friendly” and similar buzzwords may catch the eye of well-intentioned individuals who prefer to support environmentally-conscious brands. However, just because products contain one or more of these labels, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are entirely sustainable or safe. Which is why it is important to read the labels and to think about what qualities of a cleaning product are important to you – do you want a product in less plastic packaging? A biodegradable, non-toxic product? A plant-based product?

Understanding what goes into your product and what to look for on a label can be helpful in making an informed, eco-conscious decision when it comes to your cleaning products. And fortunately, as with many other types of consumer goods, there are also seals of approval from independent, third-party organizations to help you shop for products that meet your values. Next time you shop, keep an eye out for these three seals:

The UL ECOLOGO label signifies that a product has a reduced environmental impact. Factors include manufacturer’s energy consumption, water use, and waste.

The EWG VERIFIED label attests that a product has no harmful chemical ingredients.

The Safer Choice label is certified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), it reviews a product’s chemical ingredients for human and environmental health, product performance, sustainable packaging and production measures.

If you’d like to read more about this topic, check out this article and news story from NBC Washington.

Welcome to the 2022 Virginia General Assembly Periodic Updates!

The legislative outlook may be a little different this year, but there are reasons to be optimistic. Waste reduction legislation has been gaining traction around the country and we have a few bills to follow here in Virginia!  

But,  this email is going to get you primed for the next 60 days, and remind you about how you can get ahold of your legislator, how you can tweet at them, as needed, remind you about our legislative tracker that is usually reserved for bills having to do with litter and recycling, but honestly we are always interested in the big picture of Virginia’s environment, and believe that everything is connected–Economy, Environment, Equity, and Environmental Health! 

Of Note: you may have a new Senator or Delegate since the election to make sure you know who your elected official is by checking here.

Our friends at Virginia Grassroots have a great list of all the legislators’ twitter handles and email addresses so that you can ping them as needed. Don’t forget to thank them when they vote for or champion GOOD legislation!  Save this link, although we will try to remember to put it in all our missives. 

Speaking of good legislation–there are 3 EPR (Extended Producer Responsibility) bills, a bottle bill, some good energy efficiency enabling legislation, some quality wildlife corridor legislation and funding opportunities and more but we’ll start laying those out in future emails once they are all assigned to committees, and we know more about them, because honestly, it is like drinking from a firehose. 

Let’s go right to a bill being heard TOMORROW!

We are a little curious/concerned about this bill (SB 250) because we are a county with an aging “Waste To Energy” facility, “Ash generated by incinerators and energy recovery facilities (also known as INCINERATORS THAT BURN YOUR TRASH SO IT SEEMS LIKE IT JUST DISAPPEARS INSTEAD OF TURNING IT INTO TOXIC ASH AND GAS)  that are subject to this section shall be exempted from the annual fees assessed under this section.”

This bill also increases the fee for a composting facility from $1,200 to $5,500. Do we really want to make it somehow cheaper to burn trash and organics, and more expensive for localities to compost, because it’s already basically commercially impossible due to the lack of affordable land for a facility in Northern VA, as well as ENDLESS HOA restrictions about simple backyard composters. We are in the game of reducing barriers and increasing access to solid waste disposal. This bill will be heard in The Senate Agriculture Committee (committee members linked here–save for future reference–this is a busy committee for enviro stuff!)  tomorrow (1/18/22) so please do contact Senator Surovell to ask him about it! 

As we add more bills into our “support” and “not support” list,  plus some more that we are watching, they will be up on our LitterFreeVA.org page and bills will be added and updated on a once they are assigned to committee.  We’re a little short staffed this year so if you want real time information on all the bills at any moment, you’ll want to go right to the source–The General Assembly Website. 

Finally there is the provocative appointment of former and brief EPA administrator, Andrew Wheeler, Coal and Plastic schill for Former President Trump as the Commonwealth’s Secretary of Natural and HIstoric Resources. We got to encounter Mr Wheeler here in Fairfax when he turned up at the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors public hearing on the $.05 bag fee and tried to talk up his “good work” while at EPA (video.)  Needless to say, we and some of our friends on the Board of Supervisors were not impressed.  Mr Wheeler’s resume tells us all we need to know about how he would protect our natural and historic resources but we’d like to remind you that cabinet appointments at that level still need to be voted on by the legislature, so please call your Delegate and your Senator and let them know that Virginia’s billion dollar+ industries of fishing, hiking, farming,  agritourism and more,  as well as our historic tourism are worth more to us than Mr Wheeler’s relationships with big polluters.  

Oh, and Virginia trying to get out of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative? That  is a whole other email and blog post,  but luckily that looks like it will take a court order so we have some time with that one. Suffice it to say though–we do not want to leave RGGI!

But, here’s the thing– We need to be playing offense at the same time we’re playing defense. There’s a thing in hockey where you pull your goalie out and have them play offense in order to have more skaters on the ice but that leaves your goal untended. We can’t be distracted by the big things like Andrew Wheeler and RGGI,  and some of the other egregious threats to the environment, and not pay attention to the things happening quietly, right under our noses.

Eyes on the prize, friends, and the prize is Virginia. It is Virginia’s environment, business climate, school system, and its recent movement toward human and civil rights, increasing the minimum wage so people can afford to work and live and contribute to the Commonwealth,  and all the work that we all have done in the last several years to move Virginia forward in so many areas, not just environmental–because it is all connected! 

And finally, we’ll leave you with this thought, on this important day of commitment to Civil Rights, and Public Service, and beg not for something as banal as donations or shares or clicks, but that you pay attention this year and really stay on your elected officials at the local level, state level and national level because who knows what our communities, our state, our country, our climate, our world– will look like in the next 5 years if we don’t:

“Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing. He is not a good man who, without a protest, allows wrong to be committed in his name, and with the means which he helps to supply, because he will not trouble himself to use his mind on the subject.” John Stuart Mill, 1867

Stay healthy, sustainable, and loud.  

Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act

The Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act (BFFPPA) has been reintroduced to the 117th Congress! We’ve written and spoken at length about this bill in the past and are enthusiastically supporting it again this year. Some of the highlights of the BFFPPA include: a nationwide bottle deposit program, a nationwide fee for single use plastic bags, a ban on several common single use plastics, extended producer responsibility, stops exports of plastic waste, and implements a three year moratorium on plastic production facilities. The Surfrider Foundation has excellent information that you can check out here! This is also a great time to let your federal elected officials know why aggressively addressing the plastic pollution crisis is important and why they should support the BFFPPA! If your Congressperson isn’t on this list: Representative Connolly, Representative Scott, and Representative Luria, use this form from Oceana to contact them and ask them to sign on!

Plastic Waste and Organized Crime

Another reason for us to get control of our domestic plastic production- we are fueling international organized crime. Three years ago when China stopped accepting 99.5% of our plastic waste, we didn’t make any changes. The US isn’t using fewer plastics and we haven’t improved our domestic recycling capabilities. What isn’t being burned in incinerators or left sitting in landfills is still being shipped overseas to countries without the infrastructure to handle the waste, creating a new market for organized crime. This has led to an increase of plastic waste often found being burned in the open or left to pile up in forests. Read about how organized criminal gangs are exploiting the plastic crisis harming local communities and the environment here.

Mountain Valley Pipeline Permitting

Developers of the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) have been hoping to quickly complete the pipeline despite pushback from residents and regulators. The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) has requested an extension from the Army Corps of Engineers to allow adequate time for DEQ to complete the necessary studies. MVP had been hoping to use Nationwide Permit 12 to cross bodies of water in the path of the pipeline, but legal challenges have forced the MVP to secure individual permits. MVP is still planning on all disputes to be resolved by July of this year, but DEQ is hoping to extend the permitting process to March of 2022. When stopping pipeline expansion, a delay isn’t the ultimate victory, but it does provide the ability to continue working to stop the MVP. Read the developing story here!

Maryland Working to Ban Chemical Conversion Facilities

As Virginia was inviting the chemical conversion (advanced recycling) industry into the state during the 2021 General Assembly, a group of Maryland legislators was working to ban the industry from coming to Maryland. Delegate Love has introduced a bill that would ban any plastics to fuel facility from being constructed in Maryland. She properly identified chemical conversion as a Trojan horse for the petrochemical industry- these facilities are nothing more than a way to make another fossil fuel. You can read about her bill here and if you have some time you can watch the committee hearing about this bill here. The chemical conversion debate starts at the 1:14:05 mark.

Future of Smart Growth

As Virginia looks to create a sustainable future, we need solutions to the car centric suburbs that make up much of the state. Smart growth strategies can help, but these strategies must be implemented with intention rather than solely on outward appearances. As “town centers” are designed, feet and bicycles should be the focus, not the ability to drive. One of the greatest benefits of smart growth is a reduction in carbon footprint for the businesses and people in the area. Just as with any sustainability initiative, smart growth needs to be implemented equitably. The ability to live in a pedestrian friendly neighborhood should not be linked to a high income. Supervisor Walkinshaw is leading the push for local smart growth and see’s this an opportunity for Fairfax County to be a leader in sustainable growth. Implementing smart growth principles for future development will enable Fairfax to reduce the county’s carbon footprint and also increase the availability of affordable housing. Read about the future of smart growth in Virginia here!

Governor Northam signs the ban on expanded polystyrene

Virginia is joining a handful of states and the long awaited ban on expanded polystyrene (Styrofoam) food and beverage service containers has been signed into law! Large chain restaurants have until July 2023 to phase out EPS containers. Businesses with less than 20 locations have until 2025. This bill passed because of sustained grassroots effort led by Environment Virginia. The 2021 General Assembly wasn’t a 100% success, but we can definitely feel good knowing we’ll have one less plastic problem for our communities and waterways. Read the entire story here!

Virginia’s single use plastic bag fee

The momentum for localities in Virginia to implement the $0.05 fee for single use plastic bags is growing! Fairfax, Arlington, Loudon, and Prince William counties have begun preliminary discussions on what it will take to implement the single use plastic bag fee. The latest news is out of Prince William County where they are discussing using the revenue from the bag fee to start an office of environmental sustainability.

While this isn’t the good news that the first plastic bag domino has fallen, it is encouraging that localities around the state are looking to a sustainable future and using the single use bag fee as a catalyst. We anticipate that when one locality adopts the single use bag fee, others will quickly follow. Read the entire story about Prince William’s push for a single use plastic bag fee here!

Another ban on single use plastics!

In 2018, Queensland Australia banned single use plastic bags and saw a 70% reduction in plastic bag litter. That same year the Australian state started a bottle deposit program, this program has resulted in 3 billion beverage containers being returned. Queensland is building on their previous success with a ban on several common single use plastic items including: straws, cutlery, stirrers, and expanded polystyrene food and beverage containers. This action may be on the other side of the world, but it is always encouraging when any location takes aggressive action to prove that life without single use plastics is feasible. Read about the exciting plastic waste reduction initiatives happening in Australia here!

Environmental destruction from our addiction to single use plastics

One of the most disturbing stories to come out recently was about researchers finding 2,000 plastic bags in a camel’s stomach. This is an important reminder that plastic waste isn’t only a hazard to marine life. Plastic pollution impacts every ecosystem and every living organism on the planet. Nothing that is used for a few minutes should exist for hundreds of years only to cause death and destruction around the planet. You can read the tragic story of the camel here.