This summer, 2,000 volunteers collected more than 52-thousand pounds of trash from the Chesapeake Bay – much of it plastic. And Governor Northam ordered state agencies to stop buying plastic and foam food containers, straws, utensils and water bottles. In the last part of our series, Sandy Hausman reports on another hopeful sign in the fight against plastic pollution.

With growing public awareness of plastic in the environment, the world is looking for alternatives and Virginia recently gave a vote of confidence to one possible solution – an approach called advanced recycling. Now, critics say the Commonwealth made a mistake.

Despite growing fears about the impact of plastic on our planet, manufacturers keep making the stuff, and experts say less than ten percent of it is recycled. In part one of a series, Sandy Hausman reports on the state of recycling in Virginia and what may happen in the decades to come.