CHESAPEAKE, Va. — Every year, millions of Americans come together for America’s Recycling Day.

This is an opportunity to review your recycling habits.

That’s why I visited Hampton Roads’ largest recycling center to see how we can all make changes for the better.

“People love to recycle. It’s one small step each day that people can take to make a huge difference for many years to come.

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Michael Benedetto is president and owner of TFC Recycling.

He told me Hampton Roads was doing a great job.

“The amount of materials we recycle is at or above the national average,” he told me.

TFC provides curbside recycling for more than 60,000 homes in Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Suffolk, Hampton and Outer Banks, as well as other areas of the state.

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“Some people are getting the wrong message that materials end up in landfills,” Benedetto said. “And nothing could be further from the truth.”

Chesapeake was recently on this list, but residents voted against it.

“The referendum in Chesapeake, we received feedback from residents. It’s not that they don’t like recycling. They didn’t want to pay fees.

During a tour of their multi-million dollar facility, he showed us how paper, plastic, cardboard and more are all sorted by mechanical screens, pneumatic jets, magnets and even optical sorters that AI uses to separate materials and high-density presses that compact their recycling so it can be sold on the market.

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“We don’t need to touch 95 percent of recycling,” he told me. “The technology is pretty reliable and it does a great job of trying to redo what we want to do, making recycling effective and efficient.

But even with all this technology, human error can still sometimes cause them problems.

One of the biggest problems encountered here at the recycling center is plastic bags. These do not go in your recycling bin; they need to be separated and recycled in a different way.

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Benedetto calls this “wishcycling”.

“They want to think that this material could be recycled, and when they put it in the container they feel a little better about the idea that maybe it will be captured, at least I put it in the recycling container .”

Bad items are separated and still end up in the landfill.

That’s one reason they created their Start Smart, Recycle Right campaign with the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission to help educate the public and make recycling simpler.

“They received a $2 million grant from the EPA. So there will be people on the street looking inside the recycling carts and communicating with people if the wrong items are there. And then they will also receive educational information, if you will, that will be sent to residents to remind them how to start smart and recycle correctly.

Benedetto tells me that education and awareness will go a long way in making a difference in recycling and creating a healthier environment for everyone.

“Recycling works, and it works very well,” he said. “We can all do our part to make a difference. »