City honours star recyclers
Yearly awards recognize those who recycle, compost and reduce waste
Jessica Davey-Quantick
Northern News Services
Wednesday, April 19, 2017
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
The City of Yellowknife is ready to crown a new batch of Planeteers.
James Peggs, otherwise known as The Recycling Guy, won last year after he started his own project to collect and sort recycling around the community. - photo courtesy of the city of Yellowknife |
The winners of the 2017 Recycling Awards are scheduled to be announced during the Zero Waste Forum at City Hall on April 20.
"It's a chance to honour and recognize citizens and groups who have taken clear and impressive actions to reduce waste," said Chris Vaughn, sustainability projects co-ordinator for the city.
The yearly forum, is a chance to highlight the city's efforts around waste reduction, from recycling to composting, and keep the public up to date, according to Vaughn.
Last year, Mildred Hall School won for its recycling program, including a cellphone recycling program in partnership with Northwestel, and community garden project.
The Green Team and Ms. Kim McKnight at N.J. McPherson School were also honoured for their efforts, where students give up their lunch recess time to recycle. The team had grown to 60 students after five years.
Some efforts were smaller, but just as mighty: six students from the St. Joseph School Recyclers were honoured for designing methods to compost and grow sustainable crops in the North that won them a $20,000 grant from Samsung Technology Grants.
The final two winners were the Eco-Wolves from Weledeh Catholic School for their composting program, and James Peggs, otherwise known as The Recycling Guy.
After moving to Yellowknife in 2015, Peggs was shocked by the amount of recyclables he was seeing in dumpsters in his neighborhood, and wanted to do something about it.
A year later, he was making the rounds with his wagon every week to eight customers to collect their recyclables, sort them and bring them to the depot.
Vaughn said winners are honoured at the event, as well as highlighted online, and receive a plaque and a meet-and-greet with the mayor.
"It's really open to everyone who considers themselves waste reduction champions," said Vaughn.
Nominations this year were open until April 9. By press time, Vaughn wasn't able to say specifically how many nominations they had received, but that it was "quite a few" for both businesses, groups and individuals. In the past, the city has given out five awards, however Vaughn said that could change, depending on the nominations.
"If we see that there's some really interesting and particular nominees we may consider increasing the awards," he said.
The goal is to give a little something back to the people who give back all year.
"I think sometimes people need to be reminded that it's small, individual actions towards waste reduction, that those small, individual actions are just as important as the large scale municipal actions," said Vaughn.
"We just want to make sure we recognize those who are doing the ground work when it comes to waste reduction."
