Alexandria Glass Recycling Locations and Population Density

Alexandria citizens created this website in support of a September 2024 letter of support and a Spring 2024 query to city staff and leaders about potential improvements to glass recycling in the city we are proud to call home. The query led to a robust discussion with City Staff, the addition of 3 new signs at the previously unmarked MOM's drop off, and exploration of potential new locations marked with purple dots on the map below. We are grateful to Gary Hensley and everyone at T&ES who helped install the new signs.

As of August 2025, further changes to the glass recycling program are on pause until the city conducts a study of its overall recycling program and assesses a new waste management recycling sorting facility that is coming online in Maryland.

The map shows population density by census block group for the city of Alexandria and one mile rings around each of the city's five glass recycling drop offs. Blue diamonds show library branches and red triangles show fire stations. The city has ten fire stations and five glass drop offs. Four of the ten fire stations are more than a mile from a glass drop off. Much of the city is far from any drop off location.

We made the map using American Community Survey data and free tools as documented in this code. We would be thrilled if citizens learned from our work to illustrate the effects of public programs and inform dialog in their own communities. We welcome questions and comments by e-mail.

Photos of the proposed Main Line Boulevard location:

Right click and "Open image in new tab" to see these at much higher resolution.
Facing the east, where the site backs up to busy railroad and metro tracks. Facing south, where the site backs up to athletic fields. Facing west, where the site backs up to athletic fields. Facing north, where the site backs up to athletic fields and the nearest buildings are more than 100 yards away.

Conceptual Photos of a Simpson Park Location:

Our discussions with city staff did not identify a specific candidate location in Simpson Park. These photos show the attractive features of Simpson Park locations near Monroe Avenue. We are open to other locations in the park as well.
Facing the east, where the site backs up to athletic fields and Route 1 and train tracks beyond the fields. Facing south, where the site backs up to Monroe Avenue -- an arterial street -- and a shopping center. This location would be convenient for shoppers. Facing west, where the site backs up to the YMCA. This location would be convenient for YMCA patrons. Facing north, where the site backs up to athletic fields.

Map