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Ongoing: 
Tracking devices placed in the bins at the drop-off sites have ended up in the landfill.

April 17th, 2024
Chesapeake Recycles Co-Founders, Lacy Shirey and Dawn Matheson, met with the Director of Public Works. The city agrees to help rework the contract to  include measures ensuring our materials are being properly recycled. We plan to regroup in 30 days.

March 29th, 2024
More bins have been added to the drop-off sites to manage the overflow. The overflow is still an issue, but it is improving. The City Park drop-off location has been relocated. It is now located off of Hollowell Lane. Enter City Park from City Park Drive.  Drive past the dog park. Just before the skate park, take a right onto Howell Lane. The drop-off site will be on your right. The location was moved for two reasons: 1) the old location was near Fun Forest and the recycling trucks were driving through the Fun Forest parking lot–putting children at risk; and 2) the new location is larger and can accomodate more bins. Click here to see a map.

March 23rd, 2024
Chesapeake Recycles Co-Founders, Lacy Shirey and Dawn Matheson, meet with the City Manager. The city agrees to make improvements. 
Click here to read a summary. Click here to see a summary of our recommendations.

March 21st, 2024
Chesapeake Recycles Co-Founder, Lacy Shirey, toured Recycling & Disposal Solutions (RDS) to gain a better understanding of how our recyclables are processed and where they are being sent. RDS also processes trash, and several of our tracking devices have been tracked from RDS to the landfill. We are working with RDS and the city to put measures in place to help ensure our materials are properly recycled.

February 19th, 2024
A Chesapeake Recycles supporter films County Waste trucks (owned by GFL) combining pre-sorted materials from multiple bins into one truck.
Click here to watch the video.

February 17th, 2024
Several Chesapeake Recycles supporters report overflowing bins at the drop-off sites. Well-meaning citizens have no choice but to leave their bagged recyclables on top of or nearby the overflowing bins.

Sadly, this is considered “contamination,” and GFL will likely take the load to the landfill where it is roughly 50% of their cost as compared to taking it to the recycling facility.

In the end, the city is responsible for the contamination rate, not the citizens. If more pick-ups were scheduled, citizens would be able to dump their recycables in the bin and place their plastic transport bags in the garbage where they belong.

But, scheduling more pick-ups would drive up the cost, and the city claims to be saving $2+ million by eliminating the curbside recycling program and utilizing the drop-off sites for recycling.

February 16th, 2024 @ 7:10AM
A Chesapeake Recycles supporter reported seeing a County Waste truck (owned by GFL) empty the cardboard bin AND the bin containing plastics and metals into one truck. The trucks are not compartmentalized. Likely this load was transported to the landfill. 

February 15th, 2024
A Chesapeake Recycles supporter reported being at Recycling & Disposal Soultions of Virginia (RDS),  and saw no bales of recycling material in the yard. If RDS is receiving recyclable materials, there should be bales of inventory waiting to be sold in the yard. Yet, there were none.

(Sun) February 11th, 2024
A Chesapeake Recycles supporter witnesses city workers removing sorted recyclable materials from the drop-off bins and putting the materials in a city garbage truck. When the supporter asked the driver where they were taking the materials, they were told “to RDS (Recycling & Disposal Solutions of Virginia ). Yet RDS doesn’t accept materials on the weekends, and RDS does not have Chesapeake trucks on their rosters at all.
Click here to watch the video.

(Sun) January 7th, 2024
A Chesapeake Recycles supporter witnesses city workers removing recyclable materials from the drop-off bins and putting the materials in the garbage truck along with regular trash. When the supporter asked the driver where they were taking the materials, they were told “to the landfill; we’re only doing what we’re told.”