UQSUQTUUQ/GJOA HAVEN
The movement to recycle old cars already popular in the south is slowly rolling into Nunavut by way of a pilot project run by Summerhill Impact that could see 250 abandoned vehicles removed from Gjoa Haven and Arviat.

Gjoa Haven is like other Nunavut communities which have a an old-car graveyard where vehicles no longer in use are placed. The vehicles leach pollutants and pollute groundwater. Now something is being done about them. - photo courtesy of Summerhill Impact

Summerhill is a not-for-profit organization focused on creating and delivering environmental initiatives with partners in the government and business sectors. They focus on product stewardship and pollution prevention.

Though, to the observer, an old vehicle at the dump may simply look like an unsightly old shell, it is, in fact, oozing pollution onto the earth it sits on.

“A vehicle contains so many different pollutants,” said Janet Taylor, account manager with Summerhill. “Each vehicle could have a mercury switch, ozone-depleting substances in the cooling system, different oils and fuel. Each vehicle basically represents not just recycling a car but managing a number of potential pollutants that are harmful to the Arctic environment.”

When Summerhill ran the original Retire Your Ride program across southern Canada, in 2011, which disposed of almost 120,000 old cars, they soon realized that Northern and remote communities could not be included in the program, said Taylor. The reasons included the obvious – distance and cost.

While the 250 cars targeted with this new initiative called Tundra Take-Back may be modest and “only scratching the surface,” as Taylor said, it's a start.

Gjoa Haven and Arviat were chosen primarily because of the zest shown by the communities for the can recycling program run by the local grocery stores.

“Both our Northern and Co-op send sea cans full of cans every year that we recycle,” said Shawn Stucky, senior administrative officer for the hamlet of Gjoa Haven.

Recycling a car is not as simple as recycling a can, but both have this working in their favour: empty sea cans and barges returning south.

Though Stuckey joked that he'd never sat down and counted the abandoned metal machinery in the community, he said, “we have at least four bulldozers that are just sitting up on the land. They have not even made it to the dump. We also have washing machines, dryers, all those types of things. Cars-wise, probably several hundred.”

Taylor said Summerhill decided to focus on “scrap cars, basically old vehicles people weren't using anymore, that are just sitting in the community."

The pilot project includes training community members in the steps of recycling a vehicle.

As Taylor explained, the various pollutants need to be “captured,” meaning all liquids need to be removed from the vehicle before crushing it.

“(The project) actually leaves skill sets in the community,” said Stuckey. “I hope that we can continue this on an ongoing basis. I think it creates a long-term solution – or at least one viable solution.”

Stuckey said he hopes 15 to 20 people will participate in the training and “de-polluting,” as Summerhill calls it, in August.

“Then we'd know we'd have a long-term base that knows ... what the hazardous material is, where it is in the car. Things like little mercury switches, I didn't even know that existed. I knew about the bigger things, like oils and anti-freeze but not battery lead.”

He also hopes to have a hamlet mechanic or two involved “so at some point, if we decide a vehicle is no longer viable for the hamlet, we can ensure before it ever goes anywhere that all of this has been done.”

Stuckey stresses that for an initiative of this magnitude to work, partnerships are necessary.

“Everyone has to be involved,” added.

In this case, that includes Environment Canada, Automotive Recyclers of Canada and Arctic Cooperatives, among many others.

Once de-polluted, Nunavut Sealink & Supply Inc.(NSSI) will back-haul pollutants and the vehicles. But the vehicles themselves have to be crushed first, which is another problem with car recycling in the North. This means it's likely not all 250 emptied bodies will be shipped out this summer.

“Ideally, we would have what's called a logger or a baler, which is essentially a piece of equipment that will roll as well as crush things as big as vehicles, but can go down as small as barrels or appliances. That would get rid of all the air space in a vehicle, and you can recover far more of them in one container.”

Instead, the group will make do with whatever industrial equipment is in the community, such as a front-end loader, which could make the body half as high.

Summerhill hopes the program will continue beyond the pilot year, “in order to obtain that kind of equipment and really show what could be done with the proper resources.”

After two weeks each in Gjoa Haven and Arviat in August, and after sea lift season comes to an end in the fall, Summerhill will report what was achieved this summer.