Fairfax County
Feedstock System Assessment

Fairfax County is Virginia’s largest, with more than 1.2 million residents. Its material system has three destinations: recycling and organics; the I-95 Energy/Resource Recovery Facility in Lorton; and landfill.

The E/RRF is owned and operated by Reworld Fairfax, Inc. County material is combusted to raise steam, which drives a generator. The ash remaining after combustion is landfilled at the I-95 Landfill Complex on the same site — so a single ton is handled twice, once as fuel and once as residue.

More than 650,000 tons a year passes through the County’s hands to that facility. County documents describe the agreement running to 2031, with five-year extension options, ending with the expiry of the lease on the property.

The facility’s operator publishes a higher annual throughput than the county-controlled figure used here. We have used the County’s own number throughout, because it is the material actually under the County’s control and the subject of its contract. Separately, the County reports two different diversion figures — roughly 44% countywide and a lower figure for County operations specifically. They measure different things and are not interchangeable.

A disposal contract that expires can be renewed, and usually is, because renewal is the path of least resistance. A lease on the land beneath the facility is a different kind of date. County documents describe the current agreement running to 2031, with the end point set by that lease expiring.

That makes 2031 a genuine decision rather than an administrative one — and it sets the clock for anything that needs to be specified, permitted and deployed beforehand. A manufacturing destination needs a working phase, a term sheet, a site, a permit, and 12 to 24 months from permit issuance to commercial operation.

This date comes from County documents of 2016 and 2022. We have not re-confirmed it against a current contract or any later amendment, and we state it as what those documents describe rather than as a verified current term.

Combustion leaves ash, and that ash is landfilled at the I-95 Landfill Complex on the same site. It is a disposal obligation carried on top of the gate rate, and it persists for as long as the facility runs.

To be explicit: Carbotura is not a waste-to-energy operator and does not perform combustion. An ACM plant has no stack and no air pollution control train, produces no ash, and does not sell power, electricity or hydrogen.

Waste-to-energy and coal ash are, however, a material class Carbotura accepts as feedstock. That is a smaller and nearer-term conversation than the main stream, and it does not depend on the 2031 date.

In August 2026 the Solid Waste Management Program launched a Request for Expressions of Interest on the future of the County’s waste and recycling system, with responses due 30 October 2026. Carbotura is submitting a response. This assessment and the documents alongside it are published in support of that submission.

Its named scope includes mixed-waste systems, disposal optimization, organics processing, construction and demolition recovery, recycling, and public-private partnership structures. Four of those map directly onto material classes an ACM plant already accepts. The County has said the RFEI welcomes early-stage concepts as well as proven solutions, that it is open to organisations of all sizes, and that it is not a procurement — responses inform possible future solicitations.

County audits also report high contamination in diverted streams. ACM takes material as received, with no pre-sort requirement and no clean-stream specification at the gate, which is directly relevant to that problem.

Fairfax presents a county-controlled stream of more than 650,000 tons a year, currently combusted with its ash buried on the same site, under an agreement that ends when a land lease expires in 2031 — against a 90% diversion aspiration and a 44% actual rate.

A Phase Initial deployment of 400 TPD takes 12% of county generation. Phase Expanded at 1,800 TPD takes the county-controlled stream whole, inside a single building and under the 2,000 TPD per-building ceiling. The sizing is conservative against a verified volume.

VERIFIED: 2023 generation and diversion; CY2024 recycling rate; county-managed and county-diverted tonnages; the 650,000+ tpy county-controlled figure; the FY2027 published rate of $98/ton; County staff projections for 2029 and 2032; the 25%-from-2018 generation reduction target and the 90%-by-2040 diversion aspiration; facility ownership and operation by Reworld Fairfax; ash landfilled at the I-95 Landfill Complex; the RFEI and its 30 October 2026 deadline.

DESCRIBED BUT NOT RE-CONFIRMED: the 2031 agreement and lease end date, from County documents of 2016 and 2022. CONFLICTING AND NOT USED: the operator’s higher published throughput figure. ESTIMATED: composition split, employment, site requirements. NOT IDENTIFIED: any candidate site. NOT CITED: Virginia regulatory provisions — that pathway is Joint Working Group work and we have not cited rules we have not verified.

• Fairfax County DPWES — commercial disposal rates schedule, FY2027
• Fairfax County — Energy/Resource Recovery Facility and I-95 Landfill Complex pages
• Fairfax County — Solid Waste Management Program budget documents; published strategy and implementation roadmap; solid waste projections and market study
• Fairfax County — Request for Expressions of Interest (August 2026) and associated county release
• Published reporting on county disposal rates and the proposed disposal fee