Yellowknife to spend $469K on recycling this year — though plastic, glass still going to landfill

Yellowknife is projected to spend nearly half a million dollars on its recycling program this year, but the city's mayor says "not a lot" has changed since a revelation in 2019 that several materials being carefully sorted were ending up in the landfill anyway. 

Sixty-four tonnes of plastic were collected at Yellowknife's blue bin sorting stations and landfilled in 2021, Aimee Dentinger, a communications officer for the city, said in an email. Likewise, six tonnes of glass were collected, crushed and placed in the landfill too, she said. 

So what is the point of a recycling program that doesn't recycle plastic or glass? 

The vast majority of material collected through the city's recycling program is cardboard and other paper products. And the majority of that is, actually, being sold on the recycling market.

Dentinger said 1,197 tonnes of cardboard and other fibres were collected last year. Of that, 820 tonnes were sold and the remaining 377 tonnes — including whatever is considered "contaminated" — were used on site, she said.

"The landfill is a bit like a lasagna," said Yellowknife Mayor Rebecca Alty. "You have to put garbage, and then you got to put a cover, and then you gotta put garbage."

If it didn't use cardboard for this purpose, said Alty, the city would need to buy another material to use as a cover. In April last year, Christopher Vaughn, the city's manager of sustainability and solid waste, told CBC News that compost was being used for the same purpose.

"We're actually required to cover … our active landfill with anywhere from 15 to 45 centimetres of soil," he said at the time. "It's not as easy to produce that soil in the North, so using the low-grade compost is another way to save costs." 

How Yellowknife's cardboard is 'better'

Alty said if everybody threw everything in the garbage instead, materials could not be used productively on site. She also said because residents sort their materials, Yellowknife's cardboard has "been deemed to be better" than cardboard from other markets. 

"What you see down South is everyone throws their stuff in together, so then you could have those plastic yogurt containers in with the cardboard and maybe somebody hasn't cleaned it properly," she explained. "By the time they sort their recycling down South, you have more contamination between the cardboard and the tins and the plastics." 

The city brought in $38,000 selling recycling last year, said Dentinger. It had initially expected to make $60,000 of the sale of recycling in 2021, she said.

Tin is also being collected and baled for sale — a shift from how it, too, was being landfilled in 2019 — but Dentinger said the city didn't collect enough of the material last year to sell it. She said it'll remain baled, on site, until it can be sold.

But when it comes to glass and plastic, the city is still stuck. 

Municipalities throughout Canada have struggled to find a market for used plastics after China, which used to be a primary importer of the world's recyclables, banned 24 types of recyclables and solid waste at the start of 2018. Glass, meanwhile, "cannot be safely shipped to out-of-territory" markets because of its "fragility," said Dentinger. 

Alty said the federal and territorial governments are exploring extended producer responsibility policies, which would make product and packaging producers responsible for properly managing materials once they reach the end of their life — shifting the responsibility away from consumers and municipalities.

The Yukon has committed to implementing an extended producer responsibility framework by 2025. The N.W.T. does not have such a policy, but it is highlighted as a goal in the territory's waste management strategy and implementation plan. 

Recycling as a 'good practice'

Alty said people should also continue to sort plastic, glass, tin and cardboard so the city can adapt "right away" if a solution is found. 

After carefully sorting her recycling at the blue bins near the Yellowknife Co-op on Wednesday, Lisette Self told CBC News she knows some of the materials will get landfilled regardless. 

"I will continue [to sort recyclables] as long as we have the bins here because I feel they must be looking for markets," she said. "We're doing our part and now you have to do your part, as the city. If the matter is that there is no market anymore, then just get rid of it until there is a market." 

Caleb Larocque said he was disappointed to find out how much material is landfilled a few years ago, but he'll continue to check the type of each plastic he brings to the sorting station. (The city only accepts plastic types 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7.) 

"I go through the effort because it's just good practice," he said, after dropping off some cardboard and mixed paper. "One day, when they do finally start recycling it properly, I'll already be doing my part. I'd rather just keep in the routine." 

According to its current budget, the city expects to make $20,000 on selling recycling this year, while waste recycling is expected to cost $469,000.