SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - If you've ever wondered where items dropped off at the bottle depot or tossed in the city's blue recycling bins end up, the answer is likely Alberta.

Cliff Dyson, an employee at the Bottle Shop Recycling Depot, sorts aluminum cans. - Jeanne Gagnon/NNSL photo

The million of containers collected by the territorial Beverage Container Program are shipped south as the territory does not have recycling facilities, said Judy McLinton, the manager of public affairs and communication at the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

"Everything has to go to Alberta. It depends on ... where the closest recycling facility is for that product and what price they can get for it," she said.

Yellowknife residents have the option of bringing their containers to the Bottle Shop Recycling Depot for a refund or dropping the items off in one of the city's blue bins.

The Bottle Shop sorts, counts, crushes and packs aluminum cans, plastic and glass bottles, milk jugs and Tetra Paks, for instance, at a rate of about 15 million containers per year.

"Once you start shipping elsewhere, then the cost getting it there costs a lot more so we ship to mainly Alberta," said Adam Pich, the Bottle Shop Recycling Depot's owner and manager.

Pich sends 16 pallets of beer bottles a week to Edmonton, with 168 dozen of beers in a pallet. Milk jugs are sent to Alberta twice a month. All plastics, metal cans and Tetra Paks are likewise sent to Alberta for recycling. But the depot sends about 15 tons of glass per week to the landfill as not all bottles, wine bottles for instance, have a standard size or colour, which makes recycling them unappealing, said Pich.

"If people wouldn't recycle and everything still ended up in the dump, I wouldn't be making any money. We have to get people to bring the containers here," he said.

Yellowknife has had a beverage container recycling program since 2005. Residents can also choose to sort their newspapers, corrugated cardboard, boxboard, plastics, white paper, tin cans and glass before placing them in blue bins in six locations, operated by the city. Once the bins are full, the contents are baled at the landfill before being shipped to Edmonton.

The current system works well, said Bruce Underhay, manager of the solid waste management facility.

"Everything that's in the bins is recycled except the glass. The glass is stockpiled in landfill in hopes that somewhere down the road, we can find a place to ship it to," he said.

He added the city doesn't have a problem finding markets for the rest of its recycling material.

"Most of it goes to Edmonton and some of it, like our appliances, white goods, goes to British Columbia," he said.