Yellowknife (Oct 10/03) - Inuvik's recyclers will be taking their message to the streets and schools next week as part of a national recognition of the mess we all make.

Waste Reduction Week began with a coalition of non-profit groups and corporations which agreed to promote waste reduction on a national level with a campaign focused on the Reduce, Re-use, Recycle slogan.

Barb Armstrong of A&B Salvage and the Inuvik Recycling Society said they planned some new activities to target waste reduction and some changes to existing recycling methods.

This is the first year Inuvik has taken part in the week and Armstrong has planned trips to the schools and tours of the dump, to illustrate to young people just how much waste is created by Inuvik.

"We have a very good system of recycling in Inuvik, but people sometimes need to be reminded of it," Armstrong said.

The week coincides with a new change to the bags the society has been asking people to use for their recyclables.

The new bags are translucent blue, rather than the usual clear bags.

People can store recyclable bottles, plastics and cans in the clear bags and deposited at the recycling centre at the landfill or placed in dumpsters and dug out later at the landfill. x

The society is putting sample bags in each Inuvik mailbox to show people the new product. Several retailers are already carrying the new blue Glad bags.

Armstrong said the clear bags give people some added reinforcement to just what they are throwing out.

"A green garbage bag hides your garbage and nobody has to be accountable; they put it in the bag and forget about it," she said. "The clear bag makes it easier for us to recover, but it kind of helps to plant a seed about being accountable about what they are throwing away."

To curb the use of plastic shopping bags, the recycling society is offering canvas bags for sale to individuals or to retailers can order them with their own company logo printed on them.

"One of the big problems we have in Inuvik is with all these plastic bags," she said. "It takes years and years for those things to break down."

"We spend hours every summer just cleaning up these bags, because they blow around and they're every where in town too."

Canadians generate more than 21 million tonnes of garbage annually, making Canada one of the top five countries in the world for waste generation per person.