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| Tuesday May 21 2013
Juneau: 50°F
Now in Digital HD on Ch. 5.1!
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Recycling in Juneau Published: 05/13/2010 12:40:00 There are some misconceptions about common household waste recycling in Juneau, you sometimes hear that there’s no true recycling, there’s no market for the products, they don’t take glass, and it all just goes to the landfill anyway, but we found out that’s not the case. Jim Penor, the Solid Waste Coordinator for the City and Borough of Juneau tells us … “The recycling program is a recycling program and the waste segregation of the waste streams is being one hundred percent recycled, as you can see on the boards right here, we’re taking plastics number one, If you look at the bottom of your containers, your milk jugs, your pop liter bottles and that, you’ll see a recycle arrow and then right in the middle of it will be a number, it’ll be one, two ……… Currently we’re recycling plastics number one and plastics number two”. They also accept Grocery bags, Tin Cans, Aluminum Cans, white office paper, mixed paper, corrugated cardboard and glass. Mr. Penor went on to say, “We’re taking in glass, we are separating it for the waste stream, and they are using it for a beneficial use and I urge people to keep their glass separate, throw it in the containers, because it is a beneficial use for the landfill for road material”. They’re able to use the glass on a local level, but some people still say that there’s no market for the rest of it. Jim assured us that “The commodities that we’re accepting is the plastics and the tin and the aluminum, the cardboard and the mixed paper, that’s your higher end recycling material and there IS good markets for that, the markets are volatile, they do go up and down, but we’ve been very successful”. In 2009, they shipped right at 1,850 TONS of material to markets in Seattle at a profit, and the cost to residential users? Nothing. There’s even a small incentive to recycle. “It’s absolutely free, actually if you can drive through the landfill, and get a little ticket, after twenty stops of coming to the recycling, you get a free dump, and that’s pretty nice”. http://www.juneau.org/pubworks/recycling.php By: Rik Pruett - rik@kath.tv |
