The North Lakes recycling center temporarily reopened on Sept. 28 as part of a new solid waste management strategy. The facility is approximately 30 years old and has been in operation ever since the city of Denton started its recycling program. The recycling site was closed for about six weeks due to the construction of the new North Lakes tennis center at the park. With the completion of the parking lot construction, the recycling site is back open to the public but only for a limited time.
The plan is to permanently close the North Lakes site halfway through 2023 and replace it with a collections site. This “comprehensive conversion ordinance” will require every home, multifamily apartment and business institution to have some sort of recycling program at the point of origin, Denton’s Director of solid waste Brian Boerner said. It will ensure people have a place to manage their recycling at the point it is generated instead of saving it up and taking it somewhere else.
“It goes back to education,” Boerner said. “If you’re willing to do a little bit of work, you can make tremendous progress in the reduction of your solid waste footprint.” There has been a longstanding problem with illegal dumping at unstaffed recycling deposit sites such as the one at North Lakes, Boerner said. There is a demand in the areas surrounding the city of Denton for a recycling deposit, and it is estimated that close to 60 percent of the people who use North Lakes right now are not residents of Denton. “They’re coming from cities outside of the city of Denton, and I know for a fact as far away as Gainesville,” Boerner said.