Yellowknife has had a recycling program since 1990, when Ecology North identified the need for one and started a recycling pilot project. The City took over the program in 1994 and has been running it since then. The current program uses a self drop-off depot system, where residents bring their recyclable items to bins at locations across the city.
Sorting your recyclables properly is crucial!
Residents and businesses are encouraged to adopt a sorting system that fits their needs. Doing so will make it easier to bring and sort recyclables at the Blue Bin Stations.
What can you recycle?
Below is a list of items accepted at all of the Yellowknife Blue Bin Recycling Stations:
- Paper products: there are three categories of paper recycling that must be separated:
- Cardboard (corrugated - with wavy lines between layers)
- Mixed Paper (Ink and staples are acceptable)
- Boxboard (cereal boxes)
- Colour, glossy, or brown paper
- Magazines and flyers
- White or loose leaf paper
- Ink and staples are acceptable
- Newspaper
- Glass: glass jars and containers. No lightbulbs.
- Tin Cans: tinfoil, tin cans, tin jar lids.
- Plastics: #1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7. Type 6 plastics are currently not accepted in the blue bin stations
Where to Bring Recycling
There are six 'self drop-off' Blue Bin Recycling Stations in Yellowknife that you can access any time of the day and week:
- YK Direct Charge Co-op parking lot
- Finlayson Drive & Kam Lake Rd (corner)
- Ruth Inch Memorial Pool/YK Arena parking lot
- Beside Olexin Park on 52 Street and 54 Avenue
- Corner of School Draw Avenue and Franklin Avenue
- City Landfill
Please take your time when sorting recycling at these depots. The City does not have the capacity to sort through and separate all the recycling in the bins so residents have to help from the start. When there is a highly contaminated load (full of items that are not recyclable or in the wrong category), it may have to be thrown in the garbage instead of being recycled. We ask that you simply take an extra minute to place your recycling in the correct bins so that all our recycling efforts can be effective.
When the bins are full they are taken to the landfill and the items are compressed into bales. Once there are enough bales collected, the goods are shipped to Edmonton for transport to recycling facilities where they are transformed into new goods.