City of Iqaluit eyes mandatory recycling

GREG YOUNGER-LEWIS

Iqaluit’s new public works boss says city hall isn’t ready to throw its expensive recycling system into the trash-can.

So now he needs to find a way of cutting the program’s costs.

Recently arrived from a cost-cutting mission as the senior administrative officer in Hall Beach, Mark Hall now has a mandate as Iqaluit’s director of public works to revamp garbage and recycling services.

Hall said one priority will be urging more of Iqaluit’s large-scale businesses and government departments to wean themselves off the landfill site and put more throw-aways into the city’s blue and green boxes.

“I plan to recommend [to council] that we become more insistent that they come on board, as far as waste diversion is concerned,” Hall said.

If these groups – such as apartment building owners and hotels – don’t boost their recycling voluntarily, Hall said Iqaluit may have to force them.

By forcing them, Hall means a mandatory recycling system where the city refuses to accept any recyclable material for the landfill.

“We’re a long way from taking that position, but it is a very serious issue,” Hall said, adding that if businesses renege on more recycling, he would make it mandatory within three to five years.

The proposal drew applause from local environmentalists, and a bevy of questions – but not out-right rejection – from the business sector. One business leader said it made “good sense” for commercial and industrial outfits, such as hotels, to support recycling in Iqaluit.

Recently released statistics on the cost of recycling have prompted debate on how to make the system more efficient. Budget figures show the city spends an average of $250,000 on recycling every year.

The cost has caused alarm among city councillors and administrators, at a time when city hall needs to sell upwards of $750,000-worth of property to raise enough money to pay for capital projects like sidewalks.

The recycling picture becomes worse when compared with the significantly cheaper costs of tossing garbage in the landfill. Administration estimates their recycling costs as being 35 times higher per tonne than garbage.

Every tonne of recycled plastic, paper, glass and other recyclable materials carried a $7,784 cost for the city – not including start-up costs and some staffing-related expenses.

Every tonne of trash costs the city about $200.

The city doesn’t have estimates on how many residents use recycling, but a budget briefing prepared by the city’s engineering department shows garbage collectors are picking up 6,000 tonnes of trash every year.

Over the same time period, collectors set aside only 20 tonnes of recycled goods.

Despite the costs, Hall said the city had to back recycling because of decreasing amount of space in the landfill site, and a lack of options for reducing the volume of garbage.

A prominent member of Iqaluit’s business community warned that any move to make recycling mandatory for businesses would ultimately be paid for by customers.

“Obviously, we need to know if businesses would incur additional costs (by being forced to recycle),” said Glenn Cousins, acting president of the Iqaluit Chamber of Commerce. “I suspect the additional cost would be passed on to the customer.

“Businesses can’t incur an additional cost without recovering it,” Cousins said.

Cousins, also the head manager of Northmart, said his workplace is already making efforts to increase how much it recycles, and suggested other businesses would be ready to do the same.

However, before commenting further on mandatory recycling in Iqaluit, Cousins said businesses would need more details about how such a system would work.

But Iqaluit’s recycling system needs more than increased business participation, according to a local environmentalist.

Lynn Peplinski, a board member of the Iqaluit Recycling Society, supported mandatory recycling in Iqaluit, which she said would be a step towards the “polluter-pay principle” that cash-strapped municipalities are using elsewhere in Canada.

Cities in Quebec and Ontario will soon go beyond mandatory recycling and force companies to pay for up to half the costs of recycling in those provinces.

Beyond getting Iqaluit businesses on board, the city needs to avoid gaffes made since recycling began two years ago, said Peplinski.

In the first year, Iqaluit ended up having to pay workers in the South to separate recyclables because various plastics were mixed together by collectors when they weren’t supposed to be.

In another case, Peplinski said the city sent sealift containers south full of recyclables, only to have them return empty, missing an opportunity to recover some costs by charging a client for their use.

In light of the recycling system’s setbacks, Peplinski said the city needs to make a comprehensive plan for dealing with its waste.

“I think we’re moving in the right direction,” Peplinski said. “We just need to keep plugging away.”

Council members will be reviewing the city’s recycling program in upcoming solid waste committee meetings, which committee chair Nancy Gillis hopes will be the first Tuesday of every month.