Brodie Thomas
Northern News Services
Published Monday, July 14, 2008

RADILIH KOE'/FORT GOOD HOPE - Residents in Fort Good hope are discovering that it pays to recycle their beverage containers thanks to the teachers at Chief T'Selihye school.

Teachers and students have been running the community's recycling program since September. In most other NWT communities, the licence to act as a bottle depot goes to the local band or a business. But in Fort Good Hope the school decided to take on the job.

"The school has the licence to operate in the community. We're doing extremely well. We've kept at least the equivalent of ten sea can containers in beverage containers out of the landfill," said teacher Harry MacNeil.

"We started with one sea container when we started the program. It was provided free by NTCL. Right now we have three and they're completely full. ENR is going to provide us with a fourth one," he said.

MacNeil said the three full containers will go down on the first barge later this month. Throughout the year they have been transporting bags of cans back on Buffalo Airways, and on the winter road.

"I think we sent 21 or 23 bags out on the winter road," said MacNeil

The school hosts drop-off nights every second week throughout the year, either on a weekday evening or a Saturday afternoon. At first the concept was slow to catch on in the community. The school pays community members for each bottle and can that is dropped off.

"I think it was just $39 that we paid out at the first pickup. The last time we did it we paid out over $2,400," said MacNeil.

The school gets an annual grant of $4,500 from ENR for handling the bottles, and about $300 in handling fees each time they hold a pickup. The money is used to buy supplies that are not covered under their regular budget.

"There are some people who save up their cans for three or four months and they might get $300 at one time," said MacNeil.

Environment and Natural Resources (ENR) grants the licences to collect bottles. Solid waste specialist Diep Duong said the NWT's beverage program has been successful and cost-effective.

"Overall the program is quite revenue neutral. It's not loosing money and it's not getting money from government every year to help fund the program. It requires only deposits and surcharges from the point of sale," she said.

Duong said there are many benefits on which we cannot put a price. Bottle collection programs result in less litter around comminutes and less waste in the dumps.

MacNeil said the program teaches students more about the environment. Students will often volunteer to help with drop-off days.

Thanks to a $5,000 grant from Shell Canada, the school plans to work with ENR to hold a hazardous waste pickup day this fall.

"We're hoping we'll be able to incorporate it into our experiential science program that we're going to be offering our grade tens next year," said MacNeil. He said the town's landfill is really close to the river. By giving people a place to drop off dangerous household goods such as used oil and paint, it will prevent dangerous chemicals from leaking into the water.

"We were having a lot of difficulty transporting the material out because it has to be in special UN approved sealed containers," said MacNeil.

ENR will help with supplying the containers for the pickup day. The waste will probably be trucked out on the winter road.