VIRGINIA BEACH -- Many a beach bag holds a bottle of water, a can of soda or a newspaper to read in the sun.

Can a city with an eye on the environment grab all that plastic, aluminum and paper when the sand sessions end?

To get an answer, Virginia Beach has started its first full-season Boardwalk recycling effort. A few dozen blue bins went out after sunrise Thursday, but city officials don't know how many recyclables they'll get for a while.

"What do people bring to the beach?" said Mike Eason, the city's resort administrator. "Is what they bring recyclable?"

TFC Recycling of Chesapeake put out the bins and will empty them daily. The company, which has a roughly $3.5 million contract to handle residential recycling in Virginia Beach, isn't charging for the trial period.

The pilot program will end Oct. 1.

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"The real issue is not how much that we're collecting," said Michael Benedetto, TFC's vice president and owner. "It's that people have the opportunity to recycle."

Benedetto's firm started recycling at the Boardwalk this year for special events such as music festivals and the annual sand soccer championships.

He said he collected about a ton of recyclable material during the Shamrock Marathon this spring.

"It just makes sense when you know you have 20,000 runners consuming 20-some thousand bottles of water in one area," Eason said. "It's a no-brainer."

TFC collects more than 35,000 tons of recycling from Virginia Beach households each year.

The city and TFC agreed to expand the program beyond special events as the city pushes more environment-friendly programs in the resort area.

"We're trying to make this a green destination," Eason said.

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Going green started with the blue bins, so as the sun rose over Boardwalk hotels Thursday, a crew of TFC workers stopped every block or so to anchor the recycling bins in the sand.

The parks at 17th, 24th and 31st streets got two bins each.

And then the wait for used water bottles and soda cans began.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.