Charlottesville City Council briefed on TJPDC regional solid waste plan

Five of the six localities in the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission are members of a Regional Solid Waste Planning Unit as recognized by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality. TJPDC staff been working to update a regional plan required by the state that sets out what happens to trash and garbage.

The Charlottesville City Council had the opportunity to hear about the plan at a work session on August 17.

“The Solid Waste Management Plan must be updated every 5 years and has a 20-year planning horizon,” said Kristel Riddervold, the director of the city’s Office of Sustainability.

The plan has several goals related to information sharing, transparency, and reducing the amount of waste generated per capita.

“The objectives within those goals are developed by each locality and are specific to each locality, and these are the actions that were identified by the city staff team to meet the goals and reflect practical steps that align with our programmatic and operational priorities,” Riddervold said. “They were informed by strategies in our comprehensive plan, landfill diversion study and the Climate Action Plan.”

Resources:

• Staff report for August 18, 2026 work session
• Presentation from August 18, 2026 work session
• Draft Thomas Jefferson Solid Waste Planning Unit Regional Solid Waste Management Plan
• Appendix B – Public Engagement Materials and Results
• Appendix C – Applied Policy Project
• Appendix D – Regional Implementation Plan

The plan is due in October and tells the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality what steps will be taken to address the waste generated by the people who live in the TJPDC area.

“The preferred approach is to reduce waste before it’s generated, followed by reuse, recycling, and composting,” said Isabella O’Brien, a planner with the TJPDC. “Disposal options such as landfilling are considered after those opportunities have been evaluated. State regulations also establish the required contents of the plan. The update evaluates existing facilities and services, waste and recycling trends, future needs, public outreach efforts, and implementation strategies over the next 20 years.”

It should be noted that Nelson County is in a different solid waste planning unit.

There is a lot of data in the plan on how much waste is generated. In the five participating TJPDC regions, each person generated 3.42 pounds of waste a day in 2021, a figure that increased to 4.17 in 2024. That’s below a national benchmark of 4.9 pounds a day that remained steady over the period.

There are also recycling rates.

“Between 2021 and 2024, the regional rate ranged from 34 percent to 41 percent,” O’Brien said. “Charlottesville and Albemarle are reported together because much of the data comes from the Rivanna Authorities, which serves both jurisdictions. And based on their data, information from the city’s contracted waste and recycling hauler, private businesses, and UVA, the reported recycling rate ranged from 41 percent to 49 percent during that same period.”

A community survey was held and there were a total of 257 responses with 57 of them from city residents. For perspective, the Weldon Cooper Center population estimate for July 1, 2025 for the five localities was 259,661 with 46,923 people in Charlottesville.

Council has since adopted the plan as part of a consent agenda.

In March 2025, Council was briefed on a potential switch to a new system where residents would rent disposal cans rather than pay for stickers. The idea did not proceed at the time.

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