The city of Falls Church is the number one recycler in the whole state of Virginia thanks to the events and programs that the city offers. The Recycling Extravaganza is held every year at the local Recycling Center, where residents can bring hard-to-recycle objects, as well as household hazardous waste, for recycle and reuse.

Many volunteers showed up to help with unloading the cars that came to the Extravaganza on October 14 at 9:00 a.m.. Chris McGough, solid waste and environmental programs coordinator, was at the event too, greeting and providing assistance to the volunteers and the people present.

Lots of cars arrived within the first minutes, carrying electronics, textiles, paper, metal items, and more. These were categorized by the volunteers, who provided a welcoming atmosphere to the guestse.

“People who come here have a smile on their face. Every car that comes through and goes in one of those trucks, that’s so much better than the trash cans or the dumpster, ” McGough said.

The community is an important part for recycling as well. McGough believes that people in this community that care about recycling create values and encourage people to participate in these events.

“Having this event is part of that and next time they’ll want to do something more,” McGough said.

Recycling has improved a lot over the years. Now we have a compost program; food waste recycling is a new way that citizens can recycle things.

“If you think of an average resident’s trash can, about a quarter of it is filled with food waste that can be composted, so by providing a program like that is a much bigger way that we can recycle,” McGough said. “At our farmer’s market we have a table that helps people do food waste composting and we do it every week.”

Another great improvement is the hard-to-recycle service every day. This service was previously only given in the Extravaganza events, but now is offered every day of the year. Find more information here.

McGough wants recycling to be part of the community value.

“We only have this event one or two times a year, if we can make these recycling ideas available for the people every day, my hope is that more people will try and do it if it’s easier”, he said.

The Recycling Center has new ideas too. Next spring they’ll start a leaf compost, to give out to the residents. McGough also thinks residents and students ideas are the best for recycling, and would like to encourage anyone to share and email them to him.