Fairfax County launches new way to recycle unwanted books
Fairfax County, Virginia, is launching a new program that aims to make it easier and more convenient for residents to recycle unwanted books.
Through a partnership with New Legacy Books, the county has placed a green drop-off bin at the Interstate 66 Transfer Station in Fairfax. There are currently two donation bins in place, though the program could expand to other locations if there’s enough demand.
Residents can donate unwanted paperback, hardcover or textbooks. Any books dropped off have to be clean, dry and have ISBN codes that can be scanned on the back, according to Catie Torgersen, who leads the sustainability branch of Fairfax County Solid Waste Management Program.
“A lot of our libraries will accept donations, but sometimes they aren’t able to accept everything,” Torgersen said. “This is just another way for people to donate.”
Most of the books will be resold, if possible, she said. The ones that can’t be sold are recycled through paper recyclers.
“Then, the county receives a small portion of the sales that could go directly into their recycling services and help find more ways to help people,” Torgersen said.
While paperback books can be tossed into a regular curbside recycling bin, Torgersen said hardbacks have mixed materials, which have to be separated.
“The normal person in the normal recycling facility can’t do that, so that’s always been another hard-to-recycle item,” Torgersen said. “But because these people are collecting specifically books, they have the ability to separate the two materials and recycle them both.”
The book program is similar to the recently-expanded partnership with Helpsy, which allows residents to drop off clothes, linens and towels.
It’s likely the county will consider other locations to add book drop-off bins in the coming months, Torgersen said.
“We didn’t want to inundate ourselves with books, but we’ve had a really great response from residents in other areas where we’ve done drop-off events for book recycling,” he said.