Mike W. Bryant
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Aug 24/05) - Over on Old Airport Road sits a slick slab of concrete on which Adam Pick hopes the territorial government's new-found spirit of recycling will at least break even for him.

Adam Pick and family will run Yellowknife's beverage container depot when it opens Nov. 1. The building has yet to be built, but the local entrepreneur says he will be ready.

Pick, owner of Incity Moving, won the territorial government contract to open a bottle depot and processing centre, where beverage containers for everything but milk products can be brought in for a refund of 10 to 25 cents.

The depot is located by the side of Old Airport Road in the Northwest Transport shipping yard, not far from the airport.

Only the concrete foundation exists now but Pick plans to open by Nov. 1 - the date which the government's recycling program is set to commence.

On that date, retailers in the territory will begin charging an extra 15 to 35 cents on all beverages. Pick will make his money through handling fees rolled into the extra charge, ranging from five cents per plastic bottle or aluminum can less than a litre, to 10 cents for wine and liquor bottles over a litre.

The 35-year Yellowknife resident says taking on the contract only made good sense. If he didn't, he stood to lose his bottle collecting business and put three people out of work.

Part of his business currently is to pick up empty liquor bottles from bars, restaurants and households.

"We looked at it and said, if we don't put a proposal in and if we don't get it, then one aspect of our business would be lost," says Pick.

"But as the bottle depot and processing centre, we'll probably employ six to nine people working here on a six-day basis," Monday to Saturday.

Pick says the depot will offer a customer-friendly environment, with easy access for trucks and an indoor drop-off centre where people can filter in and out quickly or stop for a coffee and chat if they like.

"The doors open, they're inside where it's nice and warm," says Pick.

"It won't be 40-below."

He says 95 per cent of all the beverage containers coming in will be shipped south to be recycled at various processing centres, depending on the type and brand of container.

Northwest Transport will handle the shipping, carrying the containers in emptied freight trucks once a big enough load has been collected.

Pick says he doesn't have all his ducks in row just yet as far as finding collection agents for liquor and wine bottles. Until he finds a company willing to accept them, he says they will be stored on site.

Pick's depot will serve as the main collection point for all the North Slave region, taking empty cans from Rae-Edzo and other communities in the area.

None of the communities except Rae will have a depot open by Nov. 1, but Pick hopes the schools will get involved doing bottle drives to fund field trips and the like.

He says he hopes to get the diamond mines on board as well.

"Instead of throwing their containers in a landfill, we will be working with them trying to get them to collect them in an area where they can ship them out to us on a winter road and get processed here," says Pick.

If all goes well, Pick hopes to expand the operation to include cardboard and other recyclable items.

He acknowledges that getting into the recycling business could be risky. Unlike provinces in the south, a full-scale beverage container recycling program is a relatively new concept.

Contractors from only six communities in the NWT have agreed to take on the program so far. By the time construction of his facility is complete he says he will have already dropped about $500,000 into it.

Pick says there is no guarantee it will make money. If it breaks even, he will consider it a success. Regardless, Pick says he will be happy to create jobs and contribute to a cleaner environment.

"If a container ends up in landfill, the individual will not get any money for that particular can, and as a depot and processing centre, I won't get anything," he says.

"The only one who wins is the government. They will get the whole 15 cents."