City of Whitehorse to open new temporary recycling depot this month

The City of Whitehorse will open a new temporary recycling depot at the city's waste management facility on Sept. 10. 

The depot at the landfill – operated by a local business called Whitehorse Blue Bin – will replace Raven ReCentre's drop-off for non-refundable recycling.

In April, Raven ReCentre, which has managed paper, plastic and tin recycling for the city, said that it would stop accepting those materials this month — making good on a change it had given the city and territory advance notice of as early as October 2022.

The city was left to find a solution.

Under the new plan, Whitehorse residents who drop off recycling will have to pay $1 per bag, a departure from the previous system, where residents were not required to pay a fee upon drop-off. The recycling will be sorted into two streams: mixed paper and mixed containers. 

Ira Webb, associate manager of solid waste with the City of Whitehorse, said paying for recycling services is not new. It's how fees will be collected that is changing. 

"Any services we provide need to be funded through user fees," Webb said.

Under the previous system with Raven ReCentre, Webb said residents were paying through a "diversion credit program," where Raven ReCentre received financial credit from the Yukon government and the City of Whitehorse for diverting waste from landfills. These credits were paid for by taxpayers. 

"So, residents were still paying for it, you just didn't see the fee right at the drop-off," Webb said.

Whitehorse resident Dave Paquet is concerned that the drop-off fee and the new location will discourage residents from recycling. As a contractor, he often visits the city's waste management facility to drop-off used construction materials. 

"It's not the easiest place to go to," Paquet said. "The road is really rough, it's [bumpy like a] washboard – it's washboard, up a hill." 

Paquet said that while the new depot at the city's waste facility might be convenient for the city, it is inconvenient for residents.

"I think a lot of people are just going to throw [their recycling] in the garbage," Paquet said. 

Mandatory curbside recycling

In addition to the temporary drop-off depot, Whitehorse Blue Bin will be providing temporary curbside recycling to residents who are currently eligible for the city's curbside collection.

This temporary service is for residents who currently have their compost and waste collected by the city and those residents will be automatically charged an additional $12.50 on their monthly utility bills. The program is expected to begin in December.

Paquet said that he doesn't mind the extra charge for curbside service. However, he worries that the upcoming changes will cause confusion for some residents.

"My folks are in their 80s and this would probably be pretty confusing for them to make all these changes," he said. 

Long-term plan

The city's long-term recycling plan is still under development, according to Webb. 

Under the Yukon government's new Extended Producer Responsibility regulation that went into effect in January, the responsibility for ensuring products and packaging are properly recycled will soon fall on the companies that produce these products. These companies are represented by a "producer responsibility organization," which will soon be responsible for funding the recycling of paper and packaging in Whitehorse.

The producer responsibility organization is currently developing a stewardship plan for long-term recycling and will fund both a recycling depot and curbside recycling program, so that residents can receive these services without a fee.

Webb said he expects these long-term services funded by the producer responsibility organization to go into effect as early as October 2025.

The city will be releasing a recycling sorting guide and schedule for temporary curbside service in the coming weeks.