Yellowknife (Mar 15/06) - Recycling has improved in the city, and some say the increase is due to pricey garbage removal fees.

The bottle depot on Old Airport road has seen an increase in usage since Jan. 1.

Travis Thiessen works at the Yellowknife bottle depot, where they package recyclables to be sent south. The depot takes glass, plastic and aluminum cans. Thiessen is holding a compressed bundle of 750 pop cans collected in the city. - Dez Loreen/NNSL photo

"The last few weeks have been crazy here," said manager Travis Thiessen.

The depot has seen more families come in with plastic bottles, aluminum cans and glass products since the city implemented its "bag tag" program, said Thiessen.

The city charges residents $1 per extra bag for garbage pickup in excess of two bags per household.

Sean Daly said his family has always been keen on recycling, and the new program is good because it gives others the incentive to throw out less garbage.

"We've had blue bins for a long time," said Daly as he kicked the bin next to him and the sound of glass rattled over the phone.

Daly, a school teacher, leads by example to his students, as well as his son.

"My son treats it like a business. He takes our cans and bottles down for refunds," explained Daly.

Garbage reduction is the real key to saving money, said Daly, who added that re-using grocery bags, or bringing food home in boxes works very well.

While refunds are offered for some recyclables, Daly said his motives are for the environment, and not his wallet.

"I'm teaching my son valuable lessons for life," said Daly.

Cleaner living is something Thiessen takes seriously as well.

All the material brought into the depot is reusable, either in the city or in the south.

"We send our plastics and cans south for the refunds," said Thiessen.

As for the beer bottles, they are re-boxed and shipped south for cleaning and re-using.

Any glass that cannot be re-used is crushed and is available for use, said Thiessen.

"This glass here is great for landfill, or any other fill uses," he said as he sifted his gloved hand through the bin of smashed wine bottles.

Clayton Morrell operates a service that helps commercial businesses with their recycling needs.

He drops in on various offices and takes printer cartridges, paper, cardboard and plastics to be recycled.

"I drop off the printer cartridges so they can be properly disposed of," said Morrell.

Morrell said he gets calls from residential customers who do not want to go over the limit of trash set by the city.

Morrell has more than 20 businesses on his pick up list.

Bruce Underhay, manager of the city's solid waste facility, said waste has decreased 27 per cent since January 2005.

He attributes the decrease to the recycling program and the co-operation of families who bring their beverage containers to the bottle depot.

Residents who wish to drop off their own trash at the solid waste facility have to pay a $5 tipping fee.

Underhay said more than 1,000 tipping fees were counted for the month of January, but those are a total amount of residential, commercial and industrial uses.

Greg Kehoe, director of public works for the city, said the bag tags being sold to residents will hopefully decrease as well.

No statistics have been collected yet, but Kehoe said that well over 1,000 tags were sold in January.