{"id":528540,"date":"2026-03-17T09:53:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T09:53:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/528540\/"},"modified":"2026-03-17T09:53:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T09:53:09","slug":"juneaus-recycling-center-will-finally-be-back-at-full-capacity-after-months-of-issues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/528540\/","title":{"rendered":"Juneau\u2019s recycling center will finally be back at full capacity after months of issues"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Cardboard and other recyclable materials stack in a pile at Juneau\u2019s recycling center in Lemon Creek. (City and Borough of Juneau)<\/p>\n

After months of on-and-off closures and limited services, the city\u2019s recycling center will be back to operating at full capacity and regular hours starting Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Stuart Ashton, the city\u2019s recycling manager, thanked the public for its patience while the center was often closed for repairs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis recycling center being a cornerstone of waste in Juneau for decades now, not only do people rely on it \u2014 they expect it,\u201d he said. \u201cThe amount of phone calls, and then people checking in that really, this is part of their weekly waste stuff on the way to Costco.\u201d<\/p>\n

The recycling center had been dealing with mechanical issues since late December, after Juneau was hit with back-to-back record-breaking snowstorms.<\/a> In the interim, the city had asked residents to hold onto their recyclable material while it fixed the recycling baler.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The baler is the most critical piece of equipment that allows the center to operate. It\u2019s the machine that compresses the recyclables into blocks, which are then shipped by barge<\/a> to recycling facilities in Seattle that repurpose the materials.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

For a few weeks, the center\u02bcs services were limited<\/a> as staff repaired and tested the baler. Ashton says the baler is now fixed and the center is able to operate during regular hours at full capacity. That means it\u2019ll once again accept plastics No. 1 and No. 2, glass, tin cans, aluminum cans, mixed paper and cardboard.<\/p>\n

The city contracts with Waste Management to operate its recycling program in Lemon Creek. Waste Management is the private company that runs Juneau\u2019s only landfill, which is estimated to run out of space in the next decade.<\/a> Ashton said recycling plays a major role in diverting material from the landfill and extending its life.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all know that the landfill is going to be closing eventually, and that\u2019s pretty much why it\u2019s so important,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s part of all waste in Juneau, and it\u2019s how costs stay down and how whatever the new path will be, it\u2019s a cornerstone of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aston said moving forward, the city plans to have more oversight at the facility to ensure proper maintenance of the baler and prevent events like this from happening again.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The recycling center will be open at regular hours starting tomorrow. It operates Tuesdays through Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cardboard and other recyclable materials stack in a pile at Juneau\u2019s recycling center in Lemon Creek. (City and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":528541,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[63592,192,117360,237649,79,237650],"class_list":["post-528540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-city-and-borough-of-juneau","tag-environment","tag-recycle","tag-recycleworks","tag-science","tag-stuart-ashton"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=528540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/528541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=528540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=528540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=528540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}