Yumimi Pang
Northern News Services
Published Monday, July 07, 2008

NUNAVUT - The beverage recycling program in the Kitikmeot has a tentative start date this month.

"It's looking very, very positive. We're trying to get all the various details in place," said Earle Baddaloo, director of environmental protection with the Nunavut government.

The program, which was previously slated for a spring start, will involve the opening of a collection point in Kugluktuk to join sister pilot recycling projects in Iqaluit and Rankin Inlet.

Baddaloo said details such as how collection would occur, collection days, sea can containers and proper advertisement are being ironed out.

Like the pilot projects in the Baffin and Kivalliq, people who drop off their cans will benefit from an incentive program at five cents per can.

"It's not a deposit refund system, it's called a incentive program because we don't have legislation in place to demand from the public a deposit," said Baddaloo.

The program in Iqaluit has been running since July 2007, with the Rankin Inlet program starting one month later. From the programs' inceptions to the end of April 2008, 550,000 beverage containers had been collected at the Iqaluit and Rankin Inlet sites.

According to Baddaloo, an inter-departmental recycling management committee is "just about ready to be in place." The committee will be key in the development of a full recycling program and the creation of the Nunavut Recycling Advisory Council.

"We hope to have a recycling program in place by 2010," said Baddaloo. "The most important is legislation development and that'll take at least two years."

Baddaloo added recycling diverts useful metal from landfills.

"If we recycle, we not only increase the lifespan of our landfills, we also contribute towards recycling material that is already purified instead of starting with the basic natural resources," he said. "It's good environmental stewardship."

Brian Hellwig, owner of South East Nunavut Co. Ltd., has been handling the recycling of alcoholic beverage containers since 1993 and last summer also teamed up with the Department of Environment to recycle pop beverage containers in Iqaluit.

With his current can compactor, Hellwig fits about 255,000 cans, or about 2,700 kg to 3,600 kg, in each sea can. He hopes to get a new compactor soon that will pack in more cans per sea can since he said recycling in the North has several deciding factors, shipping costs being high on the list. Hellwig estimates it costs about $3,500 to ship one sea can full of containers.

Feasibility studies on the pilot projects are ongoing and Baddaloo declined to give cost estimates on the programs.