The Virginian-Pilot
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VIRGINIA BEACH
Many a beach bag holds a bottle of water, a can of soda or a newspaper to read in the sun.
Can a city with an eye on the environment grab all that plastic, aluminum and paper when the sand sessions end?
To get an answer, Virginia Beach has launched its first full-season, Boardwalk recycling effort. A few dozen blue bins went out after sunrise Thursday, but city officials don't know how many recyclables they'll get for a while.
"What do people bring to the beach?" asked Mike Eason, the city's resort administrator. "Is what they bring recyclable?"
TFC Recycling of Chesapeake put the bins out and will empty them daily. The company, which has a roughly $3.5 million contract to handle residential recycling in Virginia Beach, isn't charging for the trial period.
The pilot program will end Oct. 1.
"The real issue is not how much that we're collecting," said Michael Benedetto, TFC's vice president and owner. "It's that people have the opportunity to recycle."
Benedetto's firm started recycling at the Boardwalk this year for special events such as music festivals and the annual sand soccer championships.
He said he collected about a ton of recyclable material during the Shamrock Marathon this spring.
"It just makes sense when you know you have 20,000 runners consuming 20-some thousand bottles of water in one area," Eason said. "It's a no-brainer."
TFC collects more than 35,000 tons of recycling from Beach households each year.
The city and TFC agreed to expand the program beyond special events as the city pushes more environment -friendly programs in the resort area.
"We're trying to make this a green destination," Eason said.
Going green started with the blue bins, so as the sun rose over Boardwalk hotels Thursday, a crew of TFC workers stopped every block or so to anchor the recycling bins in the sand.
The parks at 17th, 24th and 31st streets got two bins each.
And then the wait for used water bottles and soda cans began.
Richard Quinn, (757) 222-5119, richard.quinn@pilotonline.com
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Recycle
This is one of the best ideas VB has had in a long time.
Given the chance to recycle rather than thorgh trash in the street, people will recycle. I'd rather RECYCLE than play kick the can or bottle on the beach. Good job VB.
Bahaha BudnBarb is a joke...
"People" like BudnBarb have no life and do nothing but attempt to project their own bitterness and disappointment in their own lives on others. Don't bother posting any comments next time bud.
Ugly cans?
Yeah I'd much rather look empty coke/beer cans and plastic water bottles littering the beach then a few garbage/recycling cans. Extend the cans to the North End beach. Great idea VA Bch.
aluminium can = 3 hours of power
Kudos to Va. Beach for jumping on board the recycling bandwagon. You know, for every aluminium can you recycle you harness enough energy to power a television for 3 hours.
Re: 1st post
Yeah, and those new-fangled lightbulbs are just as ugly too! Who cares about the environment anyway, when it's all about how it looks, anyway. I'm kidding!
Personally, seeing such cans makes me think that the area actually does care about recycling and the environment, and it makes me respect the area more....as for people who post such negative comments as in the first post, I also know that there are plenty of cranky people who have nothing better to do than slam anything and everything that happens in this city.
Beach Recycle
Yeah, those big ugly blue cans will really look great at the beach. Whose idea is this???? The same one who placed all the horrible white plastic gargage cans at the bus stops. What a way to greet people. (pardon me while I throw up)
recycling cans
Those ugly blue bins would be less full if people only stopped to recycle their aluminium cans and paper. A simple can crusher will compress the cans so that they take up 8 times less space than a non compressed can.