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DENINU KU'E/FORT RESOLUTION
In 2005, Rocky Lafferty's father started a beverage container collection depot in Fort Resolution under what was then a new recycling program launched by the GNWT.

Rocky Lafferty, the operator of the beverage container recycling depot in Fort Resolution, stands next to large bags of bottles and cans ready for shipment to a processing centre in Hay River. - Paul Bickford/NNSL photo

However, a little more than a year later, Lafferty's father, Gabriel, went south to Alberta to work for the summer with another son in the construction business.

So, Rocky Lafferty decided to step in and take over the recycling operation, and he has been doing it for the six years since.

That made him perhaps the first second-generation recycler in the NWT.

"A lot of things in my life are following my dad in his footsteps," he said. "Whatever he's done, I kind of enjoyed doing it."

In fact, the 41-year-old Lafferty noted he is now also a forest firefighter in the summer, which is something his father did for 22 seasons.

"So that's why I decided to work there when he was working there," he said, noting his father retired a few years ago. "Now my son is working there."

With his part-time recycling business, Lafferty buys recyclable beverage containers and sells them to a processing centre in Hay River.

Each trip involves between 25,000 and 30,000 containers, he said. "Sometimes two trips a month and between 15 and 24 trips a year."

Those impressive numbers are for a community of about 500 people.

Most of the recyclables are pop and water bottles, Lafferty said. "A whole lot of pop."

When he purchases a can, he pays 10 cents of his own money and, when he brings it to the processing centre in Hay River, he gets 12.2 cents. There are varying refunds based on the type of container.

Operating a recycling depot is a part-time job, and cannot provide a full-time living, Lafferty said. "There's not enough money in it."

Officially, he is supposed to open the depot six hours a week - three hours on Wednesday and three hours on Saturday. However, if someone drives by at other times of the week and they have bottles or cans, he buys them if he happens to be out in his yard.

"It is kind of busy sometimes," he said.

The public is responsible for sorting and counting the beverage containers.

"They just bring it to me and tell me what's there, and I'm just supposed to be there to pay them and haul it to the processing centre," Lafferty explained.

However, he noted he sometimes helps elders by picking up cans and bottles at their homes.

Lafferty, who is also a band councillor with Deninu Ku'e First Nation, believes the recycling program for beverage containers is good for Fort Resolution.

"It keeps a lot of it out of the landfill and it keeps the streets clean," he said.

Still, Lafferty noted not everyone recycles beverage containers, possibly because some people think it is too much work.

That's despite the fact of a GNWT ad campaign telling people there is cash in their trash in the form of bottles and cans, he noted. "But a lot of people still throw it away."

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