Discarded Items From Airport Checkpoints Donated To DC-Area Nonprofits

ARLINGTON, VA — Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority staff members, on Tuesday, recovered 613 items, weighing a total of 220.4 pounds, from Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport checkpoints over the last month.

The effort was part of Donate Don't Discard, an MWAA pilot program that gives the recovered items to nonprofits who serve people in-need across the DC-area.

"We started this program back in April of this year," said MWAA social impact manager Aprile Pritchet, who was sorting items at a warehouse near National Airport on Tuesday morning. "We collect once a month, and each month, it just gets bigger and bigger and bigger."

Since April, Donate Don't Discard has recovered 2,913 items, weighing a total of 1,380.4 pounds, from Transportation Security Administration checkpoints in Terminal 2 at Washington National. MWAA then donated the items to their community partners, Bethany House of Northern Virginia and Northwest Community Food Pantry in Washington, D.C., who then distributed them to their customers in the community.

While TSA guidelines allow travelers to bring a quart-sized bag full of liquids, aerosols, gels, creams and paste in their carry-on bags, each item must be 3.4 ounces or 100 milliliters in size or smaller. Anything larger, travelers must discard at the checkpoint, give to a friend who is not traveling, take the item back to their car or put it in their checked baggage.

"There are bottles over here that are 15 ounces, so it's hard to imagine people carrying that in their carry-on bag," Pritchet said on Tuesday. "Some of these products are really expensive. You just wouldn't think that they would be in their carry-ons."

Prior to the MWAA's pilot program, all of the discarded items were routinely disposed of by the company that had the airport's cleaning contract, according to Reagan National Airport Supply Management Supervisor Aaron McMurray.

"It was just a conscious decision by our social impact group," he said. "After further discussion, it turned the negative into a positive, where we can help someone in need that could use things instead of just dispersing it in the garbage, which was being done at one time or another."

If the pilot program proves to be a success, MWAA will likely expand it to the rest of National Airport, as well as Washington Dulles International Airport in Sterling.

"Prior to this program, people were probably upset that they had to throw away things," Pritchet said. "But now that it's going to a good cause, I think people feel just a little bit better about what they have to throw away."