Jess McDiarmid
Northern News Services
Published Wednesday, January 9, 2008

YELLOWKNIFE - The long-standing debate on how to manage salvaging at Yellowknife's landfill will be re-opened in the coming months as $150,000 has been set aside in the 2008 budget to create a three-cell salvage system.

The Solid Waste Management Advisory Committee, charged with advising the city on waste, reuse and recycling issues, recommended the three-cell option, according to the 2008 budget.

But the committee and the city plans to hold public meetings, expected to be in the spring, to get public input, said committee chair and city councillor Kevin Kennedy.

"We want to make sure everybody out there has their say," said Kennedy.

Nothing about the proposal is written in stone, said Kennedy, and the committee wants to maximize salvaging and minimize what gets left in the nearly-full landfill, as well as risks to public safety.

Under the three-cell system, drop-offs of salvageable items would rotate weekly between three areas of the landfill.

The public would have access to two cells, which would also rotate weekly, while a third would be closed off for landfill staff to clear the area. Garbage that is considered unsalvageable by the person dropping it off would go in a transfer bin, which city staff would then take to the active landfill.

Director of public works Greg Kehoe said the system could give people up to two weeks to salvage, whereas currently they only have several days.

"So it would actually give a greater opportunity for people to be able to salvage things," said Kehoe. "But the biggest argument for it is just public safety."

The city put limits on hours people could salvage in 2004 to allow operators to work without the public around after "numerous near-miss incidents" between salvagers and heavy machinery.

Currently, there are restricted hours on Mondays and Fridays.

But at least one fire has started at the dump in a public salvage area or near a roadway each year for the past five or six years and the city hopes a specialized salvage area would mean fewer blazes.

It could also mean fewer bags getting torn open, lessening risks to scavenging wildlife.

Committee member Lorne Schollar, who's been collecting wood for his fireplace at the landfill for years, has his doubts about a three-cell system.

"The idea of a cell system isn't all that bad but what's salvageable to one person may not be to another," said Schollar. "Salvaging partly depends on how much imagination people have or how much initiative to do something with it."

Schollar said he sees people dumping in the wrong areas frequently already and he's not convinced they would separate their salvageable items from their refuse in a three-cell system.

"You need people more in the habit of separating their loads for (the three-cell system) to be effective," he said. "I don't see that happening."

Schollar said there should be staff at the landfill encouraging people to sort garbage properly but doesn't think a new system is necessary.

The Solid Waste Management Advisory Committee will meet in the coming weeks to flesh out possibilities and then hold public consultations.

"There will be a public opportunity to talk about this in the coming months before it gets implemented," said Kehoe.

The money set aside in the budget is available to put into place whatever recommendation is agreed upon.