Yellowknife (Jun 28/06) - A city proposal to bring its recycling program to the curbside may prove more costly than the extra $6 a month suggested in a citizens survey earlier this year, according to Yellowknife's only door-to-door recycling business.

Clayton Morrell, owner of Yellowknife Recycling Services, says a city suggestion that curbside recycling would cost residents an extra $6 a month is too low. - Mike Bryant/NNSL photo

Clayton Morrell, owner of Yellowknife Recycling Services, says the high cost of fuel and Yellowknife's small population base would make it extremely difficult to recover costs through an extra $6 a month charged to the solid waste levy charged to residents for garbage services.

"You have got to have that stuff shipped south and you're not going to make a whole bunch of money off some of the product because you don't have the population," said Morrell.

"We only got 20,000. When you get programs like what the city does, it's usually two or three municipalities together down south. It's rarely just one town doing something like this on its own of this size."

The city's 2006 citizens survey asks if residents would still support curbside recycling every two weeks if the $11 solid waste levy was increased by $6. A narrow majority - 52 per cent - said yes.

Morrell, who services about 120 customers weekly, charges his customers $12.50 a month. He said his prices are based on what the City of Edmonton charges for their recycling pick-up.

Edmonton charges the owners of single family units about $17 a month for its landfill and curbside recycling and garbage pick-up and $13.25 of that comes in the form of a monthly levy. The remainder is collected from property taxes in the city's general fund.

Connie Boyce, Edmonton's director of community relations for waste management, said the levy has increased steadily since it was introduced for the first time in 1995.

"It has gone up almost every year."

The monthly solid waste levy - even when it was $10 a month - has been a sore point with residents ever since it was imposed as a temporary measure in the early 1990s to pay for the city's baling machine. The levy was never withdrawn, but rather increased by $1 to $11 last year.

In Whitehorse, Yukon, residents are charged only $7.25 a month for their solid waste levy, but they don't have curbside recycling.

Whitehorse has a number of outdoor recycling bins scattered throughout the city for residents to use, much like Yellowknife has today.

Mayor Gord Van Tighem said the $6 figure reflects what was proposed during contract negotiations for a new garbage contract last year.

Waste removal companies were asked to provide an estimate on what they think it would cost residents to bring curbside recycling to Yellowknife.

"When we put solid waste out for bid last time, we requested a number for (curbside recycling) as well," said Van Tighem. "So I'm sure if the guys are quoting a number, they got that number."

But John Oldfield, owner of Kavanaugh Brothers waste removal - the company re-awarded with the contract to collect residents' garbage - said they gave the city a quote but isn't sure where they came up with the $6 figure included in the survey.

"To me it would be tough to do it for $6," said Oldfield.

The cheapest method would be throw all recyclables - bottles, newspaper, boxes, etc. - into one bag and leave it at the curb. That would allow Kavanaugh to use the same truck to collect it all, as opposed to using separate vehicles for each recycling stream.

But even then, staff would need to be hired to sort it later and that would also be expensive, said Oldfield.

"It makes the collection cheaper but then you'd need a crew of people sort it," said Oldfield.