Litter Free Virginia is an initiative to fight for litter prevention legislation across the state of Virginia! At its core, Litter Free Virginia (LFVA) is a Clean Fairfax led coalition of people and organizations (non-profits, businesses and more) that are frustrated with litter and waste management issues, and want to develop and support policies that help solve these problems.

In its inaugural year, #LitterFreeVA focused on legislation that decreases the use of single-use bags, especially plastic bags. This took the form of a local-option bag fee of $0.05, which we are excited to say went into effect January 1, 2022 in Fairfax County! Other victories in the Virginia General Assembly 2021 session included: a bill to ban expanded polystyrene (styrofoam) single-use food and beverage containers, and a bill to ban intentional balloon releases. In 2022, we saw the introduction of multiple Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) bills, which we hope will continue to gain momentum and support in the next few years. In 2023, we are tracking additional plastics bills: including single-use plastic and EPS (styrofoam) bans, micro-plastics water studies, and changes to the state litter tax. In future years, the LFVA initiative will continue to focus on other aspects related to the litter issue. Don’t worry — we haven’t forgotten about bottles, cigarette butts, fast food containers, etc. 

While we’re hard at work developing good policy, you have a BIG part to play in #LitterFreeVA. Here are ways that you can contribute (full details found here):

• Document litter in your community – Do you regularly snag selfies? Do you take your avocado toast on a photoshoot before you dig in? If so, this may be the perfect task for you. We’ve spoken to legislators, and they need photographic proof of the litter issues we’re having. Consequently, a main focus this year is to document Virginia’s litter problems using the hashtag #LitterFreeVA. This is super easy. If you walk upon a littered area, take a photo, upload it to Twitter or Instagram, and tag us using #LitterFreeVA. We then collect these photos using a hashtag aggregator! Bonus points if you add location (including zip code if possible) as well as a bit of colorful (but positive) commentary. Want to see the photos we’ve collected thus far? Go to our front page and scroll down!
• Contact your representatives – Your local state senators and representatives have a lot to do. They can’t keep track of every issue, so it’s on you to let them know that this is an issue you care about! Click here to find your local rep’s contact information. Please note that representatives will only listen to their own constituents. Do not waste time contacting a rep that’s not your own. If you really want to put pressure on a representative outside your locality, convince citizens within that locality to contact their rep! For talking points and sample emails, please click here.

The website should help guide you every step of the way, but please contact us if you have any questions or if you are looking to become more involved in this initiative! A really easy way to keep up with what we’re doing is to sign up for email alerts. We promise never to spam you.