7 Things That Are Legal to Toss in Virginia but Illegal in North Carolina

Cross the state line between Virginia and North Carolina, and the accents shift, the barbecue sauce changes and the license plates look different.

What you can put in the trash differs, too.

Here’s what’s legal to toss in Virginia but illegal in North Carolina.

Note: This is general information, not legal advice. Waste rules are subject to change, so confirm the current requirements with your county or city solid waste office.

1. Oil Filters

A used oil filter can go out with your household waste in Virginia.

Virginia’s Department of Environmental Quality tells you to drain as much oil as you can and place the filter in a plastic bag.

From there, you can take it to your local landfill or transfer station, or set it out for your local waste collection agency.

That household waste route is closed in North Carolina, where motor vehicle oil filters are banned from landfills.

2. Aluminum Cans

Aluminum cans have no statewide landfill ban in Virginia.

Virginia’s recycling page lists aluminum among the materials you can recycle and mentions no ban on it.

North Carolina’s landfill ban list is different, and aluminum cans are on it.

The can stays the same.

A can in your trash bag falls under North Carolina’s ban but under no matching statewide ban in Virginia.

3. Plastic Bottles

Plastic bottles come with a labeling rule in Virginia, not a trash rule.

Virginia law fines a seller up to $50 for offering a plastic bottle without a resin code, the number inside three arrows on the bottom.

That labeling law doesn’t cover disposal.

Virginia’s solid waste regulation, 9VAC20-81-40, names no statewide landfill ban on plastic bottles.

North Carolina law requires a resin code too, then goes further.

Its landfill ban covers recyclable rigid plastic containers with a neck smaller than the body and a screw top, snap cap or other closure.

A container that held motor oil or pesticides is exempt.

If you’re sorting a bag of empties in North Carolina, the narrow neck and the cap are what put a bottle under the ban.

4. Yard Trash

Under Virginia law, the decision on leaves and grass clippings belongs to each county and city.

A locality can ban them from landfills by ordinance, as long as it has a composting program that can handle all of them.

In North Carolina, state law settles it and bans yard trash from landfills.

That covers brush, grass, leaves, tree limbs and similar material from landscaping and yard maintenance.

The exception is a landfill approved to take yard trash.

When leaf season buries your yard in North Carolina, the landfill ban means those leaves don’t belong in your garbage bin.

5. Oyster Shells

Oyster shells face no statewide landfill ban in Virginia.

In 2023, Virginia’s General Assembly passed a bill that funds shell recycling.

Oyster shells are banned from landfills in North Carolina.

Landscape contractors also can’t use them as groundcover.

Where do the shells go?

Many coastal communities offer shell recycling drop-offs, according to the state’s environmental agency, and your local solid waste program can tell you whether yours does.

Coastal groups and the state’s Division of Marine Fisheries use recycled shells to build new oyster reefs.

6. Computers

Under Virginia law, the duty for old computers falls on the company that made them.

Under a 2008 state act, a computer maker has to run a recovery plan before it sells desktop or notebook computers in Virginia.

That plan has to let you recycle your computer without a separate fee.

The law adds no obligation for a landfill’s owner or operator.

North Carolina’s answer is a landfill ban on discarded computer equipment.

That includes laptops, desktops and monitors, plus printers and scanners.

Keyboards and mice are exempt.

That statute covers a municipal or county government, nonprofit agency, recycler or retailer that knowingly accepts computer equipment from a consumer for recycling.

7. Televisions

Televisions fall outside Virginia’s computer recycling act, which excludes them from its definition of computer equipment.

Virginia’s solid waste regulation names no statewide landfill ban on televisions.

Virginia law does let a county or city ban cathode ray tubes from the disposal facilities in its jurisdiction.

It needs a qualifying recycling program first, and the ban has to come through an ordinance.

That’s a local decision.

Your county or city might have passed that ordinance.

In North Carolina, the answer flips for discarded televisions, which are banned from landfills.

The ban covers a direct view or projection television with a viewable screen of nine inches or larger that’s made for personal use.

A set with a screen under nine inches doesn’t meet that definition.

Where Both States Say No

Both Virginia and North Carolina prohibit tossing used lead-acid batteries.

Virginia law makes it unlawful to place a used lead-acid battery in mixed municipal solid waste.

North Carolina bars anyone from knowingly putting one in a landfill, an incinerator or a waste-to-energy facility.

In Virginia, you can face a fine of up to $50, and each battery improperly disposed of counts as a separate violation.

North Carolina caps its civil penalty at $50 for each violation.