Iqaluit Recycling society seeks last-minute rescue

GREG YOUNGER-LEWIS

Iqaluit city council risks racking up even bigger bills for garbage disposal if they decide to trash the city’s expensive recycling program, a municipal committee heard last week.

Erin Brubacher, coordinator for the Iqaluit Recycling Society, argued during a debate on waste management in Iqaluit that abandoning the recycling program will increase already growing pressures on the landfill.

But Mark Hall, director of public works, questioned how much money would be saved by keeping the recycling program, when he estimates canceling recycling will only add 60 more tonnes to the 6,000 tonnes already put into the landfill every year.

Administration expects they will have to close the dump in two years because of the high volume of garbage, forcing them to pay up to $4 million to build a new site. The funding may be available under a capital agreement with the government of Nunavut, but not until Iqaluit creates a master plan on how to deal with its mounting garbage woes.

“Recycling needs to be part of the bigger picture,” Brubacher said at a May 27 committee meeting. “The city needs to decide if we’re committed to waste diversion.”

Administration began lobbying council to trash the city’s recycling program at a council meeting last month, saying that collecting paper, plastics and glass separately from garbage has become unaffordable.

City management estimates the recycling program will cost $268,000 by the end of this year. But council approved only $5,000 for recycling in this year’s budget, leading to an expected deficit of $263,000, in a year when the City of Iqaluit already faces shortfalls.

Iqaluit Recycling Society has submitted counter-recommendations to council about how the system can be saved, without costing so much money.

In a report titled The Past, Present, and Future of Waste Diversion in Iqaluit, members recommend:

* hiring someone to manage the recycling program;
* reducing residential garbage collection to once per week;
* changing garbage collection fees for businesses to reflect the cost of dealing with large amounts of garbage (currently businesses pay a flat fee);
* designing a cost-effective garbage collection route, where the same trucks picking up garbage would also collect recyclables.

The report adds that in the long term, Iqaluit needs to start taxing companies, like Coca-Cola, that create products such as plastic bottles. The move would follow the “polluter-pay” principle that an increasing number of municipalities are enforcing in the South.

Jim Little, a member of Iqaluit’s waste management committee, said pressing companies like Coca-Cola to start a deposit system, where customers get 10 to 25 cents for returning empty bottles, will help the recycling system become self-sufficient.

“The problem is we haven’t really looked at ways to make [the recycling system] work,” Little said.

Hall will renew his plea to suspend the city’s recycling program, at least temporarily, at the council meeting on June 8.