Residents who recently went to the Unalaska landfill likely noticed crushed cars on the side of the road. Now the cars are on a barge, destined for Seattle to be recycled. The barge docked across from the local dump on June 5 “It is planned to have approximately 1,200 tons of scrap metal and about 250 vehicles on board to leave,” said Erik Hernandez, the City of Unalaska’s director of public utilities.
Hernandez said that over the last few years, abandoned cars have started stacking up on private lots and roadsides and leaking fluid into the environment — basically creating a nuisance for locals. So the city did a preliminary count of all the junked cars.
“It was over 100 vehicles that we had pre-identified, ready to go as abandoned, ready to be taken care of,” Hernandez said. The city’s solution is a project called DRIVE. It’s short for Developing Recycling Infrastructure and Vehicle End-Of-Life. The plan came together in 2024 and was approved by the City Council in January 2025.