Lynn Lau
Northern News Services

Inuvik (Oct 28/02) - Recycling is a stinky business, but somebody has to do it.

In Inuvik, that somebody is Albert Bernhardt and his wife, Barbara Armstrong, who by themselves run one of the most extensive recycling programs in the territory.

Barbara Anderson and Albert Bernhardt run an ambitious recycling program out of the Inuvik dump. - Lynn Lau/NNSL photo

Bernhardt has operating the dump for two years. He's been scavenging recyclables nearly 30 years.

Anderson came to Inuvik in 2001 when she was hired by the Inuvik Recycling Society. She ended up marrying Bernhardt last summer and when her contract ran out, she stayed on as a volunteer. She makes presentations at schools, answers recycling questions and sorts through trash, but she hasn't had a paycheque since February.

Together, the couple started a "Free Store" where people can leave their unwanted items to exchange. They sort beverage containers, separate scrap metal and this year they got their hazardous waste certificates so they could manage dangerous substances and ship them south to processing plants.

They say they wouldn't mind getting a little help from the municipality, but the town has been slow to respond.

The Inuvik Recycling Society initially hired Anderson to encourage the town to support recycling. With Anderson as an employee, the society started gathering pop cans and juice boxes, shipping the material south to be recycled. Earlier this year, as the funding for Anderson's position was drying up, the society approached the town about taking the position on a cost-share basis. The town wasn't interested.

Little support

Society president Jennifer Walker-Larsen says there hasn't been much support for recycling at all.

"We wanted some buy-in from the town, but there didn't seem to be any interest. The recycling society feels the town has responsibility for waste management and recycling is part of that."

Senior administrative officer Jerry Veltman says recycling in the North just isn't feasible, and council didn't see fit to hire someone to do it.

"We're talking major dollars -- $75,000 to $100,000 -- to fund that position and the benefits weren't there to justify funding that position."

Since the recycling society started the initiative, Veltman says, they should be carrying it on if they want to.

Meanwhile, the town has already allowed Bernhardt the "opportunity" to carry on recycling activities at the dump, although Veltman admits there has been no extra funding to support the projects.

Views like that frustrate Anderson.

"If the town took a real keen interest, there's funding out there for community improvement and resource recovery," she says. Tipping fees generated at the dump provide ample money to fund recycling, but that money is diverted elsewhere, she says.

"The community is coming on board, people are using the main street recycling containers, and they're sorting their recyclables at home. But what's not happening is the proper infrastructure to make the program work. If it wasn't for what Albert and I were doing, nothing would be happening."

Even moral support from the town has been hard to come by. When the municipally supported golf course project went ahead this summer, the power lines went up, but stopped within 300 meters of the dump, where Bernhardt and Anderson work without electricity.

Bernhardt says he ran down to talk to the workers when he saw the power lines go up, but they said they couldn't give him any power.

"Jeepers!" Bernhardt says, laughing as he recalls running after the power lines. "Can't they see? What's wrong with them?"

Bernhardt says the town's attitude toward waste has changed very little since he first started coming to the dump to scavenge for beer bottles in the 1970s.

Scary sights

"I opened bags looking for bottles, and in some of them, it doesn't look very good. I found hospital bottles, seismic chemicals, some of that stuff I could barely breathe when I opened that. The water flows from here down to Boot Lake where my kids were swimming. They'd come out with red spots on all the folds on their skin."

Now that he's taken on the dump contract, he oversees what goes into the dump, turning away hazardous waste, picking through loads to retrieve recyclables.

"I'm trying to help by doing this, but sometimes I tell my wife I should just walk out of here and see what happens. I'm doing them a big favour.

"I spend a lot of my money doing these things with Barb -- the town has nothing to do with it. They're not very concerned people. They just say, 'Bury it!' "

"I haven't gone to school much, but I know what's right and what's wrong. Burying that stuff here, it's not healthy."

Without any government support, Bernhardt says he can only dream of the day he'll be able to afford a lumber chipper to shred wood, a paper baler to package cardboard, a recycling depot to divert more garbage.

"If they had ears for this, it would be a big help," Bernhardt says.

"But the government is real slow and the town doesn't want to help. They figure it's a big loss -- concerning their health, I don't think so."