Recycling

The Central Recycling Facility accepts aluminum cans, steel/tin cans, cardboard, mixed paper, sorted office/copier paper, #1 and #2 plastics, batteries and electronics.  See this quick reference guide  for details on what is acceptable and unacceptable.  You can also explore our Interactive Recycling Guide for all your recycling needs in FNSB.

Dropping off an item that is not on the CRF’s list of accepted items for recycling is sometimes called “wishcycling” or “wishful recycling.” Wishcycling refers to a consumer’s tendency to put an item in their recycling bin because they believe it should be recycled, regardless of whether that item is on the list of accepted materials for local recycling facilities. When Fairbanks residents wishcycle, the CRF has to spend more staff hours removing the non-approved items. Wishcycling may also reduce the resale value of the baled material if CRF staff are not able to remove all of the non-accepted items. 

If you don’t know whether an item is recyclable in Fairbanks, ask CRF staff before handing the item to them. If you’re not sure and don’t have time to check, it’s best not to drop it off. When in doubt, leave it out! 

West Rock is the borough’s contractor who buys and sells (brokers) our materials to mills all around the country. The borough ships recycled materials from the CRF to West Rock’s facilities in Anchorage via train then are shipped down to the Port of Tacoma

Aluminum is typically shipped via train to Kentucky.

Steel Cans go to C&R Pipe and Steel for recycling. 

Plastic is typically redistributed throughout the Pacific Northwest

Mixed Paper is typically shipped to mills in the Pacific Northwest.

Cardboard is shipped to the West Rock processing plant in Yakima, WA to be made into new cardboard. Some cardboard is sold to Thermo-Kool in Wasilla to be made into insulation material.

Electronics are delivered to Green Star to separate functioning, newer-model computers, vintage or collectible items, and other electronics for refurbishing from electronics materials that are no longer usable. We refurbish electronics when possible to sell for reuse at our warehouse and to various buyers locally and nationally. Non-working electronics are sorted onto pallets and shipped to Total Reclaim in Tacoma, WA. Total Reclaim separates “Cathode Ray Tubes” (CRTs) – i.e., big boxy TVs and computer monitors – and other computer equipment into component parts. These parts, which include leaded glass, precious metals, non-precious metals, and plastics, are made available to manufacturers for purchase. Steel and aluminum computer frames are sold to a local scrap metal dealer.

Batteries are sorted by chemestry and shipped to Battery Recyclers of America. 

The current prices for recycled glass do not cover the cost of collecting, sorting, and transporting the heavy material from Alaska to glass plants in the lower 48. Glass bottle manufacturing has decreased 50% over the last half century since plastic bottles and aluminum cans have taken a large part of the container market, and the market value of recycled glass continues to decrease. Despite the expense and difficulty of recycling glass, the environmental value of using post-consumer glass in glass production (energy savings, reduction in greenhouse gases, waste reduction) still holds strong.

Curbside pick-up is only feasible in areas with a high density of people, which means a high number of paying customers per mile driven. Most of Interior Alaska does not have a high enough population density for garbage pick-up or curbside recycling. Our situation isn’t unique – only half of Americans have curbside pick up!

Single-stream recycling systems allow residents to collect recyclable items in one container without sorting. Single-stream recycling must be processed in a Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) to separate different materials through a mechanized process. While single-stream recycling can collect up to 40% more recyclable material than drop-off facilities, MRFs are expensive to build and maintain. This process is not perfect, and can result in higher contamination rates in baled materials than drop-off facilities. MRFs were the root cause of high contamination rates (upwards of 27%) that caused China and other countries to start rejecting recycled material from the U.S.

North Pole residents are part of the borough, and thus can drop off their recycling at the FNSB Central Recycling Facility for free, like all other residents.

Clamshells stamped with the #1 PET resin code are unlike #1 PET bottles because they contain an additional chemical called glycol. Clamshells are more accurately categorized as #1 PETG plastics. The two different types of #1 plastic cannot be mixed because #1 PETG has a lower melting temperature than #1 PET. The CRF does not collect #1 PETG because it is difficult to resell.

Lids on plastic bottles are a different type of plastic and do not melt at the same temperature as the bottle, so they have to be separated. It is also more difficult to crush a bottle when the air inside cannot easily escape; when workers compress plastic bottles into bales, the plastic caps can shoot off the bottle with incredible force and potentially injure someone. Please be kind and remove the caps!

Any data in any device that is dropped off for recycling is destroyed in one of two ways:

1. If the device works and is serviceable for resale, it is digitally wiped first.
2.  If the device does not work, it is sold to scrap buyers who shred the hard drives into little bits, making the data unreadable.

No. C&R Pipe and Steel is a private business that has a division that buys scrap metal for bulk resale and another division that sells pipe, but they do not manufacture or smelt the pipes themselves. Their stockpile of metal is impressive and so is their use of heavy equipment to compress scrap metals into “bales” and cut steel to size.  All the scrap metal is shipped to Washington and sold to various buyers. The old steel is melted down, purified, and used to manufacture various steel products like pipe for the oil fields. 

A container deposit law, or “bottle bill,” is legislation designed to encourage higher recycling rates for beverage containers made of aluminum, glass, and plastic. Consumers pay a deposit on all bottles purchased, which is then refunded to the consumer when the bottles are returned to a designated collection site.

Alaska does not have a container deposit law in place, nor is any legislation currently being considered by the state government.