Students cash in on recycling
Northwestel directory return program nets thousands for Yellowknife schools
Jessica Davey-Quantick
Northern News Services
Wednesday, April 19, 2017
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Yellowknife students are coming for your phone books.
Each year, students across the territory participate in Northwestel's directory return program, where they collect outdated issues for recycling, in exchange for a cash reward from Northwestel.
Kevin Chapman, manager of community investment with Northwestel, said the program shows leadership, sustainability and social responsibility.
"We do have a heavy paper product that's going out in the community, we need to be responsible for that and show an innovative way to get that back into recycling plants and divert it from the landfills," he said.
The program started in 2002, and since then has diverted 190,750 phone books from the landfill. Last year alone, 13,348 directories were collected across the Yukon, northern B.C., NWT and Nunavut, with 35 schools participating.
And each school walked away with cash in hand, to go toward extra-curricular activities.
"The way that we approach it is basically give the students and the faculty a bit of an incentive financially," said Chapman.
"The funds going back to the school are obviously going to extra curricular programs, and those are benefiting students as well."
The program works by offering prizes for how many directories per student are returned to the school – $300 for a one-to-one ratio, $550 for a two-to-one ratio, and $750 for a three-to-one ratio. As well, Chapman said the school with the highest percentage improvement from the year before gets a $200 bonus.
He said it's set up like that, rather than based on overall directories returned, so even small schools are able to participate.
"The smaller schools we also want to acknowledge them as well for the effort, so it's not always a numbers game," said Chapman.
$270,000 to schools
Since the program started, Northwestel has paid out $270,000 to schools across the North.
Last year, the company donated $19,550 in total.
Three schools in Yellowknife – Range Lake North School, Mildred Hall School and Ecole Allain St-Cyr –participated last year.
Range Lake earned $750. Range Lake North School collected the most directories in the NWT, at 1,485.
Mildred Hall came in second, collecting 571 phone books, earning $550. Ecole Allain St-Cyr earned $300, with 195 directories.
"I think engaging the schools and young people at the same time and educating them on sustainability is sort of a win-win scenario," said Chapman.
