Joyce MacDonald
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Nov 19/04) - Clayton Morrell hopes being designated the worst waster in Canada will mean a change in Yellowknife.

"Council or administration, I don't know who, seem afraid of going ahead with a city-wide mandatory recycling program," he said. "When are they going to start being embarrassed by being the worst?"

Morrell runs Yellowknife Recycling Services, which will pick up recyclables at the door on garbage day for $10 a month.

Morrell's been running the service for 14 months now.

"I got tired of waiting for something to happen," he said.

He's got 87 private homes on his route, as well as businesses, offices and schools.

He said a public system of recycling pick-up would be a good thing for the city.

Council has been reluctant to raise taxes to cover recycling in the past. But one Yellowknifer has no qualms about paying for recycling.

"My time is much more expensive than that 10 bucks a month," said Helen Malmsten, one of Morrell's clients.

"It's not difficult to get in the habit of recycling in your home," she said, "but it's tough to get it to the depot."

She said she finds the recycling pick-up convenient, and it's helped her family commit to recycling.

"It's awesome," she said. "Every Tuesday I put our garbage cans on one side and our blue box on the other. By the end of the day, it's gone."

Morrell said he hasn't lost any clients except those who moved away.

He has contracts with the Department of Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development (RWED), Sir John Franklin high school and De Beers, among others.

He said he works full-time picking up and sorting recyclables.

He said there wasn't much confidence in his idea at the start. Ironically, RWED refused to give him a start-up loan.

"They didn't think people in this city would be willing to pay even $10 to recycle."