Frequently Asked Questions

There are six locations around town that you can drop off your recycling at:

• City Landfill
• Co-op parking lot
• Extra Foods parking lot (at Range Lake Road)
• Pool/arena parking lot
• Corner of Schooldraw Ave. and Franklin Ave.
• 52nd Avenue

The City takes care of the goods that you drop off at the 5 depots located around town. Once the bins are full, they are taken to the landfill baling facility for processing. Items are sent through the baler to create large cubes of material - roughly 5 feet by 4 feet by 3 feet. Then they are stored until there are enough bales to make up a truck load. Once there are enough, they are loaded onto trucks and start the long drive to Edmonton, eventually ending up at a processing facility to be made into new products.

Currently the City does not have the resources to sort through all of the recycling properly. As a result we must rely on you, the residents, to ensure that when you take your recycling to the drop off locations you make sure that everything is going into the right bin. While we do our best to remove the contamination from the recycling streams, there are some that take too much time and, though its rare, may end up in the landfill instead. Go to the "What Yellowknife Recycles" page to find out what you should and shouldnt be placing in the bins. So, if youre going to take the time to go to the recycling bins, we ask that you simply take an extra minute to place your recycling in the correct bins.

Pizza boxes have grease and cheese in them normally which soaks into the cardboard. These and other food products which may be left in the boxes cause problems with the recycling process and can ruin a load.

No, you can recycle envelopes with windows as most of them are made from a water soluble paper fiber instead of plastic products.

There is no easy answer to this question. While the City is looking into the possibility of a Yellowknife-wide curbside pick-up program for recycling, we also recognize that there are many communities in Canada where a drop-off system has proven to be very successful.

The City is currently into the possibility of a large scale composting plan and its feasability for Yellowknife. In fact, there is already an area at the landfill for your grass clippings and leaves. In the meantime, there is always the smaller scale composting that you can do in your own home. Many people in Yellowknife look to vermicomposting, or worm composting, to help them reduce their waste. Its an easy process that simply requires a rubbermaid style container, some soil, some worms and a food source. And its a practice that can easily be done, whether in your home, classroom or office!

DSS (Document Securities Systems Inc.) has contracts with buildings all over Yellowknife, and will come to the office to pick up your paper and shred it in their truck. After that it is taken to the baling facility at the Yellowknife Landfill and made into bales (a small amount may be used to clean out the baler first!). Once there are enough bales for a truck load they are sent down to Edmonton to a paper processing plant.

Not currently. Since we have to pay to ship everything down to Edmonton, or further, we have to rely on market prices paid for the goods to sometimes break even on our recycling. Market prices are constantly changing, so we try to keep an eye on them, and save up our recycling if we can, for when the market value is higher. For the most part the City operates at a small loss for recycling. However, our ultimate goal is not to make money out of the process, but to advocate a more environmentally friendly community.