Yellowknife (Apr 24/06) - The territorial government has 6.1 million reasons to say its recycling program is a success.

That's the number of beverage containers it says have been returned since the program began in January.

"It is surprising," said Emery Paquin, environmental protection director in the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

"I'm personally very pleased with the way residents have participated. They have demonstrated they are good stewards of their territory," the director said.

There has been a payoff in beautifying the NWT. "Anecdotally, I've heard that there's been a significant decrease in littering," Paquin said.

The program is "pretty well on target" getting communities involved, with 26 of 31 on board, Paquin said.

Any plastic, metal or glass container is accepted as long as it didn't hold milk or food products.

Transporting the masses of cans, bottles and tetrapaks is a challenge. The government will pay to barge partly-processed recyclables from Paulatuk or Ulukhaktok (Holman), say, to regional centres where they will be crushed - into metal bricks for the cans, or pallet-sized bundles for tetrapaks - and trucked south.