Fairfax County plans to overhaul waste collections
Fairfax County is developing a new trash and recycling collection system.
The Department of Public Works and Environmental Services is working on a Unified Sanitation District model, with all trash and recycling collections handled by private companies contracted by the county.
Matthew Adams, director of the solid waste management program, described the new concept at a meeting of the Board of Supervisors’ Environmental Committee on Dec. 10.
For single-family homes, private companies would be granted exclusive rights to collect and manage waste collections in a specific geographic area.
“This approach can significantly improve waste management in the community by introducing contractually standardized efficient and effective services,” Adams said. “The contracted collector would be held to a strict performance standard, ensuring consistent and reliable services.”
Adams said that model could lead to better resource allocation, technological advancement, improved customer service, and lower collection costs.
In addition, he said, streamlining operations and reducing inefficiencies “can lead to a cleaner, healthier community.” Reducing the number of large collection vehicles on the road could result in less greenhouse gas emissions.
DPWES predicts competitive pricing could result in annual cost savings of 25 percent for residents.
According to Adams, the Unified Sanitation District model would be phased in from 2030 to 2034 for 300,000 single-family residences. Implementation of the more complex system for multifamily and commercial customers would be done from 2038 to 2045.
According to the timeline presented to the board, county staff will submit the Unified Sanitary District proposal to the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality by April 1. The state requires approval by the DEQ.
Private collectors will be notified about the new model this spring. A public hearing is expected to be held in early summer 2025.
DPWES is also proposing a flexible payment model based on the size of trash carts.
Customers with less trash can use a smaller cart and pay less, which Adams referred to as “pay as you throw” and “waste less, save more.”
A 95-gallon bin will be the standard size, but customers could opt for a 64 or 32-gallon container. A much smaller bin would be used for food scraps collected for composting. Another bin would be used for yard waste, which would be collected at no additional fee.
The county will need to develop a new facility to handle the increase in organic material, Adams said. Planning for the organics processing facility is in the early stages; a location hasn’t been determined.
Implementing the Unified Sanitation District will require a significant investment, he said. That will entail 63 new staff positions, mostly for enforcement to ensure the contractors are following the rules.
The plan also calls for zero waste events where people can drop off items for recycling, and later on, permanent zero waste centers.
That initiative, to start in 2027, would be supported by a zero waste fee charged to waste collection customers.
41 responses to “Fairfax County plans to overhaul waste collections”
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For my 2 cents, this is a horrible idea.
When something goes wrong, like has been seen with private collectors in Fairfax county, how does the county respond? If leaf collection is an example of how DPWES is able to plan and execute contracted services, it is unreasonable to expect trash to not get picked up for a month?
And to the whole pay less for a smaller container idea, this is just a recipe for litter everywhere.
Look at anywhere where there is more trash than the container can take, and there is litter, and noone is gonna pick it up. I’ve never seen or heard of the county writing fines for litter.
This is crony capitalism by our Board of Supervisors. Campaign contributions will flow in to the Board members. What company would not do this if they got a guaranteed customer base, and the Board would simply tell constituents there is nothing they can do because of the contract. Reminds me of Supervisor Jimenez with the paddle ball courts and the Fairfax park authority. You get the government you vote for.
I’m extremely skeptical that giving private companies local monopolies will lower collection costs or improve services.
Then again this program isn’t even supposed to launch for 5 years and it’ll take TWENTY ONE YEARS to be fully implemented!!
Why are they giving it such a long timeline? Either this program is a good idea, in which case you should implement it ASAP or it’s a bad idea and shouldn’t be done. Having a 21 year phase-in is just stupid for something like this.
I agree wholeheartedly. The program could be phased in asap rather than with such a long timeline. Or, select a large area to use as a test case.
As the new model is developed they could include all those county streets that are now outside the collection district because they were not included 50 years ago in the original mapping. An example would be part of the Pinecrest area of Mason.
What’s happening to curbside recycling? Replaced by “events?” How does that help? We recycle more than we throw away.
I hope we’re reading it wrong, but if they’re truly going to stop curbside recycling, you can bet most families won’t even try anymore. “Zero Waste,” my arse!!
Curbside recycling is not going away. They are actually adding curbside recycling of food scraps. The recycling events are geared for large items.
Agree with Kim D! The county boasts a Strategic Plan that focuses on “Environment and Energy,” yet their actions show this is not the case (e.g., trash companies no longer take glass and now this) pushing the services we pay for onto us, the constituents (https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/strategicplan/). The county needs to focus on another one of their Strategic Plan initiatives, “Effective and Efficient Government”, by reducing inefficiencies and improving existing services, rather than reducing services to cover their inefficiencies and lack of fiscal responsibility.
I am very supportive of this effort. I think it is terrific that this initiative will result in the creation of 63 new staff positions within Fairfax County Government. Also amazing will be the new zero waste fee charged to waste collection customers because it is so important for Fairfax County Government to expand its financial revenue sources beyond just property taxes.
New government jobs are terrific for the local economy because they are well paying jobs with good benefits, and I am certain the affluent people and businesses of Fairfax County are more than willing to shell out more from their heavy pockets to support this noble effort by their local County Government.
This is a true Win-Win!!!
I can always count on you to say the dumbest possible thing.
This is snark – right?
President Obama said “The Government is US!” and I still believe.
I believe in Government more than ever during this wonderful holiday season.
Bottom Line Upfront: This plan is government at it’s worst. Right now many, like the Camelot subdivision, have a healthy trash and recycling service selection with choices of American, Republic, Bates, or Evergreen. We can choose our service provider based on the level and type of service. If we want all types of waste picked up on the same day and you want to be able to include glass in your recycling stream, you pick Evergreen. If you want low cost, you pick Bates. If you prefer separate days of pickup because you reuse the big bin to contain refuse one day and then yards waste the next, you pick American or Republic. If you are unhappy with your price of service, you need only talk to your neighbor, ask for a copy of their bill, and furnish it to your provider and tell them to match the cost or you will walk. This is how a free market economy is supposed to work.
Government should never pick winners and losers in a free market economy. They should only make sure the playing field is level. They can do that with regulation and not with blowing up the whole buisness model. If the County wants to reduce the total volume of waste generated, then require that service providers offer two different sizes of waste cans. If the County wants to further decrease the total waste stream, increase the tipping fee at the landfills for the waste collectors. They will pass that cost back on to the consumer and they will then subsequently choose a smaller waste bin. If the county wants Composting of food scraps, then require a Compost collection; or convert the Yard Debris collection to a general Compostable goods collection. The food scraps and yard debris all end up at the same place, a commercial composting facility, so why have 2 collections for one terminus location.
Also, the idea that the County would have zero waste is a farce. All processes, including recycling processes, have waste. Plastics can only be recycled so many times before they have to be incinerated or converted back to oil using an energy intensive pyrolysis process. Paper can only be recycled so many times before the fibers get too short and cannot be recycled any more times.
Finally, the fact that this idea is going to grow the government by 62 persons should be an immediate red flag. If this idea were truely going to be more cost efficient, it would not add middlemen to a process that is already working. That is 62 more Union employees with bloated salaries and lifetime pensions that need to be paid for by the county tax payers. That number is further concerning since this plan would rely on corporate service providers which should shrink the government since they will be killing the Fairfax County Government run residential trash collection program and selling off all their trash trucks and assets. So really, how many desk jobs are you creating with this program and how many are being killed with the ending of county residential collection program?
Amen!
I hope you let your district supervisor know what you think as I am it is the only way to stop this t
It’s a disaster now and it would get worse. This is dumpest of strategies and would surely guarantee that the County and Mason would be the grandest of dumps.
The multi-family illegal renters of single family homes can’t even figure out what goes in the recycling bin vs the trash bin or the street. Animals would be attacking the food waste bins and garbage would be everywhere from local dumping.
If this gets implemented it would be catastrophic! Get rid of all the boarding houses and the undocumented; then send everyone else to Germany, China or Japan to get a severe lesson in keeping the environment and streets clean and this may have a chance at success.
Makes total sense to me. That’s how trash collection was always managed where I grew up near Chicago and there was never a problem. Why should every neighborhood have trucks from different companies running around every day of the week, when everyone’s trash can be collected much more efficiently on the same day? I was very surprised when I moved to this area and found out we had to pick our own trash company.
And it will only take 68 new county employees. What a deal!
This is a terrible idea! So now the county is going to tell me what trash company I can use. Prices will be less competitive and taxes will go up to pay for the 63 new county employees to monitor the trash companies!
This is absurd!
I was unaware that there was a problem with trash collection in Fairfax County in need of a fix devised by county staff and private collectors.
More government employees means less money/payments to the actual provider of sanitation services which ultimately results in high cost with low service standards.
The little trash hauler will be eliminated and only the big “national trash haulers” will be able to qualify!
The County will still continue to pick up homes in their magisterial districts and the “natural” trash haulers will get bigger!
Prices going down by 25 percent is a pipe dream! No “natural” hauler is going to drop prices!
Bad idea! Open competition from all trash haulers is the only way to go! The County running trash companies is laughable! They can’t service their own customers!
Who determines what company gets what area? Whenever the government gets more involved you can rest assured you won’t pay less and efficiency will go down. Creating regional monopololies will not result in better service. This is essentially a government run trash service.
Well said!!!
I agree that it would be better to select a vendor on the open market than to continue to suffer from poor county-run service (privately contracted or not).
I have to wonder if the county isn’t allowing things to slip in the hopes that we inner-ring neighborhoods will choose to give up being in the county trash and recycling program.
We need to demand better service for our taxes overall in Fairfax. How’s Jimenez advocating for us?
Fairfax County can’t manage the budget now, so of course they want to add more to the deficit by taking over the trash service. Why let competition keep waste removal costs reasonable and service, for the most part, efficient. This horrible idea will only cost residents more for government run trash pick-up that will predictably result in declining service. Fairfax County needs to instead cut the waste in their bloated organization.
Food scraps set out by the road! What could go wrong?😑
You got that right!
Has anyone done a cost benefit analysis? What exactly are we trying to fix? How do you handle HOA’s that that currently contact for trash collection as a condition of their by-laws? Does the County have the legal right to invalid this part of the HOA by-laws?
This whole idea smells like trash.
Part1The first thing that entered my head when I finished reading this article is corruption. There will always be issues if there is no competition. The county will divide the areas up and assign thrash companies to the different regions. Some areas will be larger or have more homes so therefore the assigned trash companies will be earning more and growing their business, whereas smaller areas and fewer houses these companies will be earning less. I foresee money passing hands(corruption) to win the larger areas. This is like watching a mobster movie in the making. So, who is going to make the districts and assignments? and tell me why it is going to take 63 people to run and organize this stupid plan. This is just more control of businesses, people, and limiting of free enterprise.
What is the problem that the Government is supposedly fixing? I’ve lived here all my life and (other than leaves) have had zero issues.
Is everybody in authority afraid to say: “That’s a stupid idea”.
The public is right, you are adding government jobs that will eat into the budget, kill competition amongst trash companies. I like food scrap idea but not at this expense. Open up bins by government centers like the glass, if anything.
You all clearly have no idea of how this all works. Recycling is market based, and most of what you recycle (which one could surmise from the ranting of your comments that you probably don’t) is contaminated and treated as trash because you don’t know jack about it.
The county zero waste plan is a step in the right direction, and to implement and change people’s behaviors, through education and process redesign takes a long time. The reason? Because of naysayers and short sighted haters such as yourselves.
This is an EXTREMELY complex problem, and I applaud the county for trying to make it better.
You all talk a huge game, but have no real idea what goes into it, or how much effort it takes to do what they are trying to do.
Maybe instead of pissing and moaning and trying to sound educated about a topic you CLEARLY don’t understand, and misinterpret from this article, perhaps you could lean into trying something new, educating yourself on the nuances, and stop being so damn selfish. You all are bringing the boomer vibes on this one. Just because you are resistant to change for the sake of resisting, and like to hear yourselves talk, maybe, just maybe, try to think of others and the future. As a collective we MUST make changes or doom future generations to choke on the ashes of our failure. Maybe instead of shaming people who may have an uphill climb to understand the system due to cultural or language barriers, and suggesting they get sent “back” you teach out in kindness and talk to them *gasp* and offer to help instead of simply running to your keyboard to throw shade and hate on your “neighbors.” Like it or not, different people are here to stay, and they bring TONS of positives to our community, sorry if you can’t see it. Open your eyes, open your minds, and get on board to become party of the solution. Otherwise, YOU are the problem.
Seriously, look at yourself in the mirror, you’ll see you are not perfect.
Do better assholes.
Feel free to retort, I expect it. Be my guest, waste your time trying to burn me. I’ll never see the comments anyway. LOL.
Thanks for this comment. People think my comments are nonsensical, but I can’t hold a candle to you.
I agree with Yes We Can; that was a really meandering rant that conveyed zero useful information. Read it twice and it made me smile.
After years of unreliable trash pickup we are now receiving good dependable service from competent and competitive firms. With a modicum of oversight from our BOS, free enterprise is now serving us well. If it’s not broken, please DO NOT fix it.
I am impressed that the Annandale area has so many “experts” in the specialized field of trash collection, management & disposal.
I’m unimpressed that you think yourself qualified to make a snide remark about others’ lack of experience/intellect. I suppose that, next to you, Tom, we’re all fools.
I think this is a ploy to get rid of leaf service and I feared this. People with county leaf service also have county trash seevice. Turn the trash over to private and boom, you have taken away leaf service which they don’t want to provide. I need the leaf service desperately. I also have a disability where the county gets my trash at my garage and because I can’t pull my cans to the curb. Are private companies going to provide this?