Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Nov 14/05) - Each day, about 30,000 bottles, cans and plastic containers pass under Travis Thiessen's nose, proving the popularity of recycling, if only to reclaim part of the deposits paid on the containers.

As the manager of Yellowknife's newest recycling depot, Thiessen has spent the last two weeks keeping up with the never-ending flow of beer bottles and juice containers.

Jason Dyson hauls some of the 30,000 cans and bottles that flow through Yellowknife's new recycling depot each day. - Andrew Raven/NNSL photo

They are products of a brand new, NWT-wide program to keep millions of re-useable containers out of landfills each year.

"We have been really busy," said Thiessen, who runs the depot - found in the NorthWest Transport compound on Old Airport Road - for his almost-father-in-law Adam Pich.

"People realize that recycling is the way to go," Pich said.

Until this month, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut were the only jurisdictions in Canada without some sort of recycling program for drink containers.

The government estimates that 25 million bottles, cans and jugs are sold in the NWT each year and most of those end up in the garbage.

In an effort to cut down on the waste in 2003, politicians passed a law that would impose a tax on drink consumers.

The charge, which was designed to finance the program, came into effect Nov. 1, creating a bull market for would-be contractors like Pich and Thiessen.

The sorting centre, with its long bank of sinks and beer bottle-laden wood pallets, hums with activity the entire day. The five full-time and two part-time workers fill 12 massive 2.5-metre-tall sacks daily. The containers will eventually be shipped south, into the voracious arms of recyclers and beer companies who re-use their empties.

"People are calling us," Pich said. "The market is strong."

About 92 per cent of the bottles will find their way south, said Emery Paquin, director of Environmental Protection for the territorial government.

The program, however, is not running as smoothly outside of Yellowknife.

The territorial department of Environment and Natural Resources kicked off the program Nov. 1 to criticisms from several opposition politicians who pointed out most of the Territories' communities do not have depots.

"The department has been working on this program for the last five years," said Kam Lake MLA Dave Ramsay late last month.

"Why, one week before the program is supposed to roll out, are we stranded here?"

The government has been unable to find contractors to run depots in 22 of the Territories' 33 communities, said Paquin.

His department has received one bid each from Tuktoyaktuk and Aklavik, though the contract has not been awarded.

In the communities without depots, Paquin said people will have to "hold onto" their containers. The department hopes to have a plan in place by the middle of the month that could see government workers handle the recycling chores - a solution Paquin admitted was not ideal.

"We are working closely with community organizations," Paquin said. "There is more interest being shown."

The government could expand the program in the future to include cardboard boxes, paper and other materials that are now only recycled in though a City of Yellowknife initiative.

Despite the initial hiccups, Paquin said the program in an important one.

"We have an environment here in the North that is worth protecting," he said.

"The challenge is to get people to change the way they do things."

Meanwhile, Pich has plans to install machines that crush glass, aluminum and plastic in the hopes of processing more containers each week.