There’s a new way for Yukon residents to recycle household hazardous waste

Interchange Recycling opened its new collection site for household hazardous waste at the Whitehorse waste management facility on Friday. (Isabella Calissi/CBC)

By RCI, CBC News

Interchange Recycling opened collection site in Whitehorse as part of territory’s EPR program

There is a new way for Yukoners to recycle certain household hazardous waste, after Interchange Recycling opened a new collection site at the Whitehorse waste management facility on Friday.

The site accepts lubricating oil, antifreeze, diesel exhaust fluid, oil filters and all automotive containers.

Interchange has partnered with local company KBL Environment to operate the new site. After KBL collects the material, it will be shipped to processors outside of the territory.

Jenn Robson, the director of operations at Interchange Recycling, said the new collection site will ensure hazardous materials are disposed of responsibly.

“It was a little bit of the Wild West,” Robson said. “There were no regulations in place, nothing here to ensure that materials were collected in a certain manner or sent at end-of-life for responsible and fate management or recycled into something.”

Interchange Recycling is one of four producer responsibility organizations (PROs) that are or will be managing the recycling of materials under the Yukon government’s Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) program. The PRO Call2Recycle, which is responsible for recycling batteries, began its operations in the Yukon in June.

The Yukon government began implementing the program after its Extended Producer Responsibility regulation went into effect in January 2024. The program shifts the cost of recycling away from taxpayers and local governments onto the producers of those materials. The territory has committed to fully implementing the program by the end of this year.

Some local businesses previously expressed concerns about the EPR program and asked the Yukon government to improve its communication with businesses.

Speaking to reporters at Interchange Recycling’s launch on Friday, Yukon’s Environment Minister Nils Clarke said some opposition is normal with new programs.

“Every new program will have its bumps and its challenges,” Clarke said. “Yukoners generate somewhere around 570 to 580 kilograms of waste per person. So we do want to reduce that.”

Clarke says there is a need for official disposal sites for these materials.

“With respect to these substances, we want to make sure there’s no midnight dumping, so that they’re not dumped on old mining roads or anywhere in our massive, beautiful territory.”

Plans to expand to other communities

Robson says Interchange Recycling will work with other municipalities and solid waste management facilities to set up collection sites in other communities across the territory.