Recycling the Alaska Way | High Latitude Style

Recycling in Alaska is barely there for cost and other reasons. Read how Alaskans recycle stuff their very own, often funny way.

Contents

1. Context of Alaska’s recycling difficulties
2. Alaska production
3. The Alaska trash and recycling problems
4. Old cars in the junkyards
5. Weird definition of what’s broken
6. Leftover food, etc.
7. Recycling that works

Disclosure: There are affiliate links in this post.

Context of Alaska’s recycling difficulties

Imagine a place being a destination, rather than a transit location. That is what it means living in Alaska. You never come to Fairbanks by accident.

You never come to Alaska by bloody accident. Alaska became a destination after the break-down of the Eastern Block. Back then, cargo planes from Europe to Asia fueled in Fairbanks or Anchorage prior to continuing their route to the Far East. Even the late Pope Johannes Paul II and President Ronald Reagan met on the red carpet at Fairbanks International Airport. This red carpet is now at the Howling Dog, i.e. it was recycled for a bar in Fox, Alaska.

Parking lot of the Howling Dog. In summer, bands frequently play there on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. “IMG_1351” by alaskana is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

The US’ largest state, Alaska has only seven major highways. Most of them are dirt roads. Some parts of Alaska are even off the Alaska road network and can only be reached by air plus in summer by boat and in winter by sled dog teams or snow machines.

Alaska has no land connection to the Lower 48s. No, it is not because it is that island off to Hawaii that is shown in the weather forecasts in the newsletters or on TV. One always has to drive the Alacan thru Canada. This road is a dirt road over long stretches in Canada – one lane in both directions and countless potholes. It was built during WWII to bring supply to Alaska that would go to Russia within the framework of the Land-Lease contract.

End of the road, after the rain; by frostnip907 is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 — Stretch of the Alcan on the US site close to Tok. “End of the road, after the rain” by frostnip907 is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Alaska Production

Everything not grown, fished, mined, refined or harvested in Alaska has to be hauled in – either by ship, air or over the Alcan. The huge transport costs lead to much higher prices for everyday items from food to clothing or cars than in the Lower 48. Some eBay sellers and online stores don’t even ship to Alaska due to the costs and/or shipping time. Often seller have higher rates for Alaskan than to other US destinations.

The Alaska Trash and Recycling Problems

Now what happens with the packages, recyclables and trash from the stuff that was transported to Alaska by what ever way? In Alaska, there are no facilities to recycle. Hauling the recyclables back to the Lower 48 is expensive. Landfills are a problem because of permafrost. The frequent temperature inversions make burning the trash an instant air pollution problem.

The Fairbanks air contains comparatively high concentrations of metals in winter as old transition oil is used to heat shops. Don’t even start thinking about what happens with old cooking oil!

Old Cars in the Junkyards

You can find old, read over 30 years and older, unusable cars in junk yards around the sub-skirts of the Fairbanks metropolitan area. Here yards are small when they are only 10 acres (a bit more than 4 hectare). In the outskirts, yards usually are more that 20 acres (about 8.1 hectare). Out there, land-owners often just dump their old cars on their property, invisible for them, but not necessarily for people driving by.

Weird Definition of What’s Broken

In the Interior, people repair broken car windows with foil and duct tape. A broken windshield will not be repaired until it falls into pieces. Full disclosure: We drove about 3 years with a broken windshield. The defect was below the area that you use to see what’s going on on the road.

If your direction indicator broke in an accident, you will replace the bulb and use yellow or orange duct tape to protect it from the elements and to get a yellow-like color of the signal. If it is the back light, you will use red. You get the idea.

Things are only considered to be broken when you cannot fix them with duct tape.

Leftover Food, etc.

Any decaying process including rusting is extremely slow in Interior Alaska because of the short warm season and the dry continental climate. Thus, these junk yards can be a paradise for Old Timer fans to find parts.

Composting takes years as there are no earthworms. Many gardeners do their composting in the garage in a big box. They lighten the box 24-7-365 and in leap years 24-7-366 so their “pet” earthworms stay in the compost. Imagine the difficulties not only when dressing during snow storm caused multi-day outages! 😉

If you build a compost pile in your yard with your typical food leftovers, you will be the welcome feeder of a huge colony of voles (mice). In return, you will see a lot of hawks, bald eagles, lynx, foxes, and wolverines in your back yard and occasionally beautiful owls make a rare photo bomb.

Recycling that Works

The easiest way of recycling in Interior Alaska is burning paper to enlighten the wood stove, thrifting and consigning as someone’s trash is another ones treasure. Also goodwill textile recycling is big with recycling clothes bin locations in many parking lots of grocery stores.

"Sled Dogs" by PunkToad is licensed under CC BY 2.0 — dog houses made from old wooden boxes. “Sled Dogs” by PunkToad is licensed under CC BY 2.0

After the construction of the Trans-Alaska pipeline there were left-over pipes. Binkley needed some to build a pontoon for their riverboats. The company only wanted to sell him all or nothing. Thus, he bought them all. Years later, the company needed them. He claimed that he sold the rest to them for the same price he had paid.