Happy Friday — we’re back with more Hot Bones and more birdsong. March starts this Sunday, which makes me believe spring is close.

Do one long thumb scroll for more Cville-specific updates like local events, cool houses, and pets to adopt.

🐶 Speaking of: Everest! Age is just a number, yall. This lady is in her golden years and ready to live it up with games of fetch and cuddling on the couch watching Jeopardy, aka the dream (poodle x golden retriever, 9 years, 44 lbs).

Black Bear is the region’s best residential composting service, and I say that as a happy, long-term customer and as the person being paid to write this.

If you’ve ever tried to compost at home and ended up with a gloopy mess, this is your solution.

What Black Bear members get:

Bonus: Members get free finished compost (aka “gardener’s gold”) delivered once a year so they can supercharge their yards and see the transformation up close and personal.

Learn more about Black Bear.

The last place G and I lived in DC before moving to Charlottesville was an adorable 1920s bungalow with a bright blue door and a huge cherry tree out front. Everything was perfect about the place, except that things constantly broke (rental, not our problem!) and that we had downstairs neighbors.

Soundproofing was likely not a priority 100 years ago when they built the place, because we heard a lot of what Hendrik (the father) and his tween son (Luuk) chatted about in the evenings and very very early in the mornings, what they watched on tv in the evenings and very very early in the mornings, and also what appliances they ran in the evenings and at the crack of dawn.

Also every time Luuk kicked a soccer ball against the living room wall. We heard that.

Because we could listen to their lives taking place, we assumed they could hear ours as well, which meant that we lived by NYC rules: Do not talk to your neighbors. That’d be weird.

We upheld this rule for over two years. But we did have to coordinate on the trash and recycling schedule.

The recommendation from our landlord when we moved in was that one week we’d bring the bins to the curb, and the next week the downstairs neighbors would. We assumed he told Hendrik the same thing when he moved in a few months after us, but honestly given the number of consecutive weeks that we dragged the trash and recycling cans out from behind the shed and up a full flight of concrete outdoor stairs, he may not have gotten the same rulebook.

Actually, to be honest, when I say we I mean G. She is infinitely stronger than me and way more diligent, so mostly it was her hauling the bins week over week.

But one night a few years ago, I remember I did the bin hauling ahead of time because I came inside and, after thoroughly washing my hands, sent G a text that must have read something like:

“Guess who did a very basic task and is looking for undue adoration and triumphant praise? That’s right, trash and recycling are up by the curb, babe. Also what do you want for dinner and is it Chipotle.”

I assumed I was off the hook for another month after that, as long as we all took turns with the hauling, even the kid.

And yet, the next day was one of those unfortunate cold winter mornings when trash pickup and high winds aligned.

When G left for work, neither trash nor recycling had been picked up. With our cans weighted down with a week’s worth of Chipotle scraps and whatever the guys downstairs had been cooking every night (filtering straight from their kitchen into the floorboards beneath our bed), I didn’t think too much of it.

But I work remotely. So I was home when it got even windier and our recycling lid popped open, creating a temporary sail that took the bin halfway down our street before knocking the whole thing over. I saw the La Croix cans and hazy IPA bottles and foil wrappers and tissues, tissues were those tissues? flutter and skid into the limbs of the cherry tree and all over our neighbor’s yard like confetti from a WALL-E themed birthday party.

“This cannot be happening,” I said to my computer screen. Then I called G.

“Our recycling can just exploded.”

“Um what.”

“I mean like, it tipped over and there’s crap everywhere. Do I have to do what I think I have to do?”

“Hmmm. Probably yes, but is Hendrik home? Technically he’s on bin duty this week.”

“I saw him bike away after you left. It’s just me and Felix.”

“I thought their cat’s name was Oscar?”

“Well in that case, do you think Oscar will go pick up all of our loose recycling?”

“He may need better thumbs.”

“Ugh. I hate that cat. Okay here I go. Don’t laugh at me on the SimpliSafe video.”

“You got this!”

The sheer number of Chipotle lids flying through the air probably sent Oscar ducking for cover. I didn’t see him as I ran around our street picking up Chobani yogurt containers (vanilla), Gatorade bottles (orange), toilet paper rolls (Charmin), more tissues?! who is putting these in here?? Ziploc bags (marinade from the looks of it), more beer cans (Athletic), a toothpaste tube (Tom’s), some dry cleaning bags, paper grocery bags, bubble wrap, a garden hose? so.much.herbal.tea. Cozy chamomile packets everywhere. Hendrik my man, how much tea do you drink?

I put everything back in our recycling bin but by bit. I put a rock on top of both trash and recycling. Then I got in the car and went to work at a coffee shop, leaving Oscar in charge of any more recycling mishaps.

Wishful recycling is what G, Hendrik, Luuk, and I were doing at our bungalow in Arlington. A lot of those things I spent an hour chasing down (looking at you, teabag foil), aren’t actually recyclable, even if we want to believe they are. Even if they look recyclable. Even if two people from the Netherlands (land of recycling!) consider them recyclable. It’s all very confusing.

I’d argue recycling overall is also confusing.

One reason for this is that what’s considered a recyclable item is a regional distinction. There’s no federal recycling initiative, so while Phoenix might accept used floss, Arlington may not. Plus, floss is a bad example because it’s so small that it’ll likely gunk any machine across the country. Confusing!

It’s no wonder that nearly 80% of items that could be recycled aren’t recycled in the US.

In Virginia, that stat gets a little less depressing: We have a recycling rate of nearly 40% percent. Many thanks to Hendrik for carrying the Arlington team here, even if he went overboard.

There’s so much to say about recycling in the US — including that it’s not a silver bullet for reducing our global plastic pollution problem (producing less plastic is the answer there) — but I’ll just mention a few things.

So, with those points in mind, I went ahead and distilled the three most important things to know about recycling in Charlottesville and beyond.

1️⃣ Don’t sweat the small stuff for curbside recycling: Items that are smaller than a baseball (floss, gum wrappers, crumpled tin foil and saran wrap, etc) will most likely fall through, jam, or contaminate the recycling sorting machinery.

It’s okay to trash these items instead of putting them in your recycling bin, I promise.

2️⃣ Plastic is the real nightmare: Aluminum is basically infinitely recyclable, and paper and cardboard also have great second, third, and beyond lives. In fact, paper is one of the most widely recycled materials in the US.

By contrast, plastic can be recycled once or maybe twice before the quality degrades (and becomes more toxic, jeez). Only about 5% of plastic items used in the US are even recycled. That’s probably because anyone who’s ever tried to understand what the numbers on the bottom of plastic bottles mean likely dropped dead immediately from an aneurism.

So, when you’re recycling, I’d recommend focusing your energy on paper products (including newspaper and envelopes, even the ones with clear windows), metals like aluminum cans, and glass. Although I’m sorry I’m going to make this more confusing for a second. I’m going to let someone else explain the nuance though so you don’t get mad at me:

Glass often breaks and contaminates the rest of your haul, so if you have wine bottles and you also use curbside recycling, I’d recommend keeping them in a special box until you have enough for a trip to McIntire (open every day but Tuesday) or Ivy (open every day but Sunday).

3️⃣ Recycling is expensive: The Rivanna Solid Waste Authority, the quasi gov agency that handles recycling for the Charlottesville area, loses about $700,000 every year providing these services. That’s because recyclable items are treated as commodities, and it’s often more expensive to get them from our houses to the respective recycling facilities than they make from selling these items.

When I spoke to Phil McKalips, Rivanna Authorities’ Director of Solid Waste, he mentioned that, broadly speaking, Cville’s recycling operations are more expensive than the average Virginia community because they offer more recycling options (like composting and even oyster shell recycling) even if it doesn’t make as much economic sense.

From July to November of 2025, the recycling program made about $69,000. And it cost about $357,000 to provide those services during that time. The city and Albemarle County make up the delta, so that we can still recycle our plastic milk jugs instead of sending them straight to a landfill.

➕ Bonus: For all that weird stuff you don’t know what to do with, there are special collection days where you can drop them off. This spring, keep an eye out for:

Disclosures: I got a series of cluster headaches trying to sort through all the recycling info out there, so if you find anything counter to what I’ve written down, reply to this email with your thoughts and Advil.

And for a deeper dive, check out C3’s comprehensive recycling report here, which includes details on where each recyclable item ends up. (Cardboard goes to a paper mill in Richmond, where it’s turned into things like Pringles containers.)

🏠 Historic charmer of the week: Worth it for the classic fireplace inserts alone. Fully renovated kitchen, bathrooms, and HVAC, with restored hardwood floors (4 beds, 2 baths, $214,900 in downtown Lynchburg).

🏡 Cool rental of the week: Storybook stone cottage on one of the best-kept secret roads in the city (4 beds, 2 baths, $2,000/month). Vintage kitchen sink, also vintage everything else.

🎇 Lunar New Year party: Ethos is hosting, with hot pot stations and a full menu of other amazing food to sample (like Vietnamese braised pork belly and daikon radish cakes). Also hot tea and a full bar. This Saturday, 5:30-9pm.

🫎 We have what in Virginia? Elk! Learn about the Virginia Elk Restoration Project and how we can create natural corridors for these guys to travel safely (webinar on Thursday, March 5 @ 6:30pm).

🌃 Late-night science: The first edition of the Big Science Show is this Sunday at 9pm, featuring black holes and blood glucose explained in normal speak.

📺 Movie of the week: Looks like there are still a few tickets for Banff Film Fest next weekend. Proceeds support the Shenandoah National Park Trust. There’s also a raffle, which one day I will win.

💼 Cville jobs of the week: Landscape Architect at Waterstreet Studio (no salary listed) + Marketing and Storytelling Strategist at The Front Porch ($57k).

💾 Remote job: Vice President of Regional Programs at American Rivers ($142k - $180k).

Have an event or rec you’d like to share? Hiring? Interested in advertising? Share any and all info here.