John Oldfield is the owner and manager of Kavanaugh Brothers, the garbage-disposal company that holds the contract for garbage pick-up in Yellowknife.

For Oldfield, there is only one way to keep your garbage from becoming breakfast for the neighborhood ravens.

"It has to be in a garbage can," he said. "Some people just stick out bags or they overfill their cans -- and the ravens dive-bomb them."

Oldfield said that a garbage can with a properly-fitting lid is the only way to keep garbage in the can and out of the reach of dogs and ravens.

He added that the dogs and ravens work together as a team, with the dogs knocking garbage cans over and the ravens coming around after to pick up the best bits.

"We try to pick up as much as we can," Oldfield says in regards to the beaten-up bags, but adds that his staff can only do so much cleaning up because the trucks are expected to keep to a tight schedule.

And that tight schedule can also contribute to the problem.

Oldfield says that people tend to leave their garbage out for pick-up before they leave for work in the morning, but the trucks don't come around until 11 a.m. or later, making it tough to keep scavengers from attacking. Residents have come up with a number of inventive ways to keep garbage in its place, one of the more popular being a structure to keep garbage cans in until pick-up.

But the future of the plastic garbage bag in Yellowknife will soon be a thing of the past, Oldfield said.

"Eventually, we will be going to a fully-automated system," he explained. "The garbage truck will have a robotic arm which will reach out and pick up the garbage can and dump the contents into the truck.

"Garbage bags won't be an option."

Sorry, ravens.