Nags Head Moves to Subscription-Based Curbside Recycling Service
At their Feb. 17 meeting, the Nags Head Board of Commissioners agreed to accept a bid provided by TFC Recycling of Chesapeake, Virginia, to provide a subscription-based curbside recycling service to homeowners in the town.
According to a press release, as Virginia’s largest residential curbside recycler, TFC provides recycling services for over 700,000 households and operates their own automated recycling processing facility. Therefore, they have the capacity to haul, market, and sell recyclables, providing a stable outlet for the materials they will collect from Nags Head’s homeowners.
The bid price for the recycling subscription service was $14/month per residence. Nags Head’s Board agreed to subsidize the cost by $5/residence, bringing the final price down to $9/month for each homeowner.
“Reducing waste not only decreases the volume of material being sent to landfills, it also conserves other resources such as the trees, aluminum, and petroleum used to make new materials,” said Mayor Ben Cahoon. “To demonstrate how much we support curbside recycling and waste reduction efforts, our Board will be subsidizing the cost of the service. Based on our knowledge of the subscription rates in other nearby locales, the fee for our homeowners in Nags Head is likely the lowest in our immediate region.”
The town still needs to contract with TFC but hopes to have the service in place by this summer. Because TFC plans to collect recyclables on Mondays all year long, the town will fine-tune its trash collection schedules to accommodate the new service. In addition, town staff will work on a plan for the blue recycling carts now at each Nags Head residence.
In May 2020, Nags Head suspended its town-wide curbside recycling service due to several recycling industry issues, such as the collapsing market for recyclables and the rising costs to process the material. The town had temporarily allowed its recycling vendor to haul Nags Head’s materials to a waste-to-energy facility, which was the only affordable option to continue the service. However, this was not consistent with the contract since the materials were not actively being recycled. This led to a re-evaluation of the program by the Waste Reduction Task Force and ultimately to the Board’s decision to move to a subscription-based service with a company focused solely on recycling.
To further support recycling and waste reduction efforts for non-subscribers, the town plans to increase the volume of recyclables that can be accepted at its Town Hall and Public Works recycling collection sites.
You can monitor nagsheadnc.gov/recycling for more updates on the service, including how to subscribe.
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