Zero Waste Awareness Week: Ways to Support a More Sustainable Virginia Beach

Zero Waste Awareness Week, Sept. 6-12, highlights ways residents can reduce waste and support a more sustainable community. In Virginia Beach, the Virginia Beach Clean Community Commission (VBCCC), Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center and Virginia Beach Public Library (VBPL) are doing their part to help spread awareness to rethink what we buy, what we throw away, and what could get a second life.

Seven Days and Seven Ways to See Waste Differently 

The VBCCC is a City-Council-appointed advisory group dedicated to creating a cleaner, greener, more sustainable community. It is leading outreach throughout this year’s Zero Waste Awareness Week to help residents put the “7Rs” into practice: Reduce, Reuse, Repurpose, Repair, Rewear, Refuse and Rethink.  

The Commission is encouraging simple, everyday choices that prevent waste before it starts — from reducing packaging to repairing items instead of replacing them. Zero Waste isn’t about being perfect. It’s about becoming more intentional.

• REDUCE: Less can make a difference.  
  Buy what you need. Use what you have. Choose products with less packaging. Small reductions, multiplied across thousands of households, can have a tremendous impact.   

• REUSE: One use doesn’t have to be the last use.  
  A jar becomes storage. A reusable bottle replaces hundreds of disposable ones. Moving boxes get passed to the next neighbor who needs them. Before tossing something, ask: Could I use this again?  

• REPURPOSE: Old purpose. New Possibility. 
  Sometimes an item has reached the end of one life but is perfectly capable of beginning another. Furniture can be refinished. Containers can become organizers. Scrap materials can become art.  

• REPAIR: Broken doesn’t mean finished.   
  A loose screw. A torn seam. A damaged cord. A wobbly chair. In a world where replacing something can seem easier than fixing it, choosing repair can save resources, save money, and extend the life of things we already own.   

• REWEAR: Great style deserves an encore.  
  Our closets are full of opportunities to reduce waste. Wear it again. Swap it. Thrift it. Revive it. Donate it. Mend it. Pass it along.   

• REFUSE: Sometimes the best choice is simply, “No, thank you.”  
  A straw you don’t need. A disposable utensil you won’t use. A promotional item destined for a drawer. Refusing unnecessary items may seem small, but preventing waste is even better than figuring out what to do with it later.   

• RETHINK: This is where change begins.  
  Rethink what “waste” really means. That chair at the curb may be someone’s next do-it-yourself project. Yesterday’s leftovers could be today’s lunch. A jacket you no longer wear could keep someone else warm this winter.   

As the original champion of Zero Waste Awareness Week in Virginia Beach, the VBCCC continues to guide community education and promote waste‑smart habits that keep usable materials out of the landfill. 

Resources for Residents

To encourage the community to rethink what belongs in the trash and ensure materials are handled responsibly, the Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center will host a free drive-through E-cycling event in its east parking lot, 9 a.m. to noon, Saturday, Sept. 12. Residents are invited to bring old electronics, unused prescriptions, cardboard, vehicle batteries, cigarette butts, plastic bags and similar items for proper recycling. The event is designed for residential recycling only. 

Friendly reminder that cigarette butts should never be thrown into household trash if they are not properly extinguished. Instead, bring them to the E-cycling event in a sealed container and empty them into the large plastic collection bin. The material will be sent to the recycling. 

In addition, the Central, Joint-Use and Princess Anne VBPL branches have displays highlighting books about zero waste, reducing our reliance on plastic and recycling. Drop in to learn more! 

What Zero Waste Really Means 

Zero waste isn’t really about waste. It’s about changing the way we think about resources. So, this Zero Waste Awareness Week, we’re asking Virginia Beach to try something simple: Reimagine what you buy, what you use, what you keep and what you throw away.

Because sometimes the biggest change begins simply by seeing something differently. 

Seven days. Seven Ways. One beautiful Virginia Beach.

How will you reimagine waste? 

• Recycling in VB
• E-cycling event