Malcolm Gorrill
Northern News Services

Inuvik (Jun 30/00) - "Recycling is not about making a profit."

That was the message Karl Stellbrink brought to more than 20 people at a meeting earlier this month at the Aurora Research Institute.

Before the meeting, Stellbrink, executive director of Raven Recycling Society in Whitehorse, Yukon, had toured Inuvik's dump. He stressed the benefits of recycling in terms of diverting material which otherwise would fill up landfills even faster, thus creating savings even if the recycling itself failed to generate revenue.

Currently employing about 20 people, Raven Recycling became a society in 1992. Stellbrink explained Raven made a lot of money early on by handling beverage containers.

"As Raven is a non-profit organization, we quickly went into some other commodities, like paper," Stellbrink explained after the meeting.

Stellbrink said Raven operates a public awareness campaign, mainly through schools. He suggested Inuvik residents could launch a similar campaign to spur on recycling efforts here.

He pointed out Raven separates its material and then bales it before trucking it south to market.

"We generate enough to ship one commodity at a time," Stellbrink said.

"That enables us to sell for the highest price," he said. "When we ship to Vancouver, we pay less per truck load than somebody pays from Edmonton."

Jennifer Larsen helped organize the meeting and said she was impressed by the turnout.

"I feel we're going to be able to get somewhere with this," Larsen said.

"Having Karl there was about the best thing, because this is a model we can use. His program is really successful. It's amazing what they've accomplished, given their geographic position," she said.

"And since that's the excuse that Northern communities use for not recycling, you know, I think that's pretty encouraging."

Today (Thursday) at 6:30 p.m., another meeting on recycling will be held at the greenhouse classroom.

"We'll be talking a little more about what people's priorities are for recycling," Larsen explained, "and how we want to approach the management of that, whether we want to form a non-profit society, or, you know, just work with the private businesses."