Environmental group calls for northern waste management strategy

This team of four trainees and three trainers de-polluted 39 derelict vehicles in the Hamlet of Arviat this past August, as part of Summerhill Impact’s Tundra Take-Back pollution control program in Nunavut.(PHOTO COURTESY SUMMERHILL IMPACT)

A non-profit environmental clean-up group is calling on the federal and territorial governments, along with regional Inuit organizations, to fund a multi-year waste management and recycling program across Nunavut.

In 2014, the Toronto-based Summerhill Impact piloted a recycling and hazardous waste recovery program in two Nunavut communities, call the “Tundra Take-Back.”

The program, funded through a grant from Environment Canada as well as a number of private sponsorships, helped to recycle 80 vehicles and recover more than 31 tonnes of hazardous waste from Arviat and Gjoa Haven last summer.

Organizers deemed the pilot a success in a follow up report last week, but Summerhill Impact now says it cannot secure the seed funding it needs to return in 2015 to Arviat and Gjoa Haven again, as well as a third community in the Baffin region.

If the organization can’t attract interest by the end of May 2015, Tundra Take-Back will likely be cancelled this year, said Summerhill Impact’s Janet Taylor.

And that raises a larger issue, according to the organization, about the lack of coordinated waste management in the territory.

“We need a plan and action to address this problem or it will only worsen as northern development expands,” Taylor said in a March 31 release.

“Our report shows that northern populations are set to grow by 30 per cent in the next 20 years, but we still don’t have sustainable waste management systems in place.

“The time is now for addressing this problem.”

Derelict vehicles are a good — and plentiful — example of the type of waste sitting in Nunavut’s dumps, Taylor told Nunatsiaq News following the group’s 2014 clean-up.

“A car is a large, bulky metal material that can be recycled. Within it, there are hazardous wastes ranging from mercury switches, ozone-depleting substances, refrigerants, oils, fuels, antifreeze – the whole gamut of things that can get into the local waterway,” she said.

“So we said, if you could manage a vehicle top to bottom with all the pollutants in it, you can probably deal with some of the other stockpiled things commonly found at the dump” – such as lead sources, acid batteries, and tires, she said.

“We recognize that every single community across Nunavut, and pretty much in most northern and remote communities across Canada, does have a need for this type of a program.”

Summerhill Impact’s recent Tundra Take-Back report stresses that contaminated sites pose a threat to human health in Nunavut’s communities through pollutants leaching into local water sources and air emissions created by dump fires.

“Under the current system, it may only be a matter of time until human health, or the health of country foods, is compromised via dump-site contamination,” the report said. “It is clear that work will need to be done at the community level, as well as within municipalities, to prevent further contamination.”

Summerhill Impact has received continued support from the private sector to operate its northern program this year, including the Automotive Recyclers of Canada.

But industry support won’t be enough, said the group, which estimates that one community clean-up can run roughly $120,000.

“The program requires seed funding to test methods of making recycling as economically efficient as possible in remote locations,” Summerhill Impact said in the news release. “Without financial backing from relevant federal or territorial government departments, the program will not happen this year.”