Garbage Collection in Kangiqliniq, Nunavut

Rankin Inlet -40 C

"Kangiqliniq"is the Inuit word for deep inlet.  The English name for this community is Rankin Inlet.  Rankin Inlet is on the west shores of  Hudson Bay near the 63 parallel, about 1770 km north of Winnipeg (1100 miles).   It is now the first week of March and day time temperatures have been below -30 C.  Past couple of days have had a wind chill down to -60.  Yesterday was particularly nasty. 

The population is about 2,300 and is about 80 % Inuit so that it is a fascinating opportunity to have a glimpse at the Inuit culture.  There are 830 registered vehicles - mostly trucks and SUV's.   Snowmobiles do not need to be registered, but I would have to guess there at least as many snowmobiles, if not more, around town.  We have seen the odd ATV, but I expect we'd see more in summer months. 

Polar Bear Hides

On a tour of the Town, we saw several homes where animal skins and furs were hanging on racks outside.  We have seen Arctic fox, caribou skins, wolverines, and polar bear skins.  Almost everyone has fur trim on their winter clothing, and with the recent windy sub-freezing temperatures, we came to understand why.  Locals wearing store bought coats have sewn on fur trim to shield them from the elements. 

Rear Loader - Cleaning out Co-op Dumpster

Waste collection in Rankin Inlet is done with a rear loader compactor truck.  The town only has one truck.   Residents have 205 L drums on the street in front of their houses for household wastes.  3 and 4 cubic yard dumpster bins are spotted at a few of the businesses.    Snow piles up over winter around these bins and the barrels.  Some are half buried in the snow cover. 

Household garbabe barrels

There are no recycling programs in the community.  Everything goes into trash bins and the barrels.  Even beverage containers go into the trash.  We 'southerners' are so use to placing beverage containers and paper in separate bins, it almost seemed awkward to us to throw in all in to one can.  But recycling is expensive and transportation of materials to a reliable market is expensive and seasonally limited.  The only transportation route outside the community is either by ship or by air. There are no road systems and rail systems in this part of the county. 

The town provides twice a week collection.  The collection crew stops at each household stop and hand bombs out of the barrels into the truck hopper.   They do the same at the commercial bins.  We observed the collectors picking up waste at the Co-op store and watched them lean over the edge of the bin to reach the bottom to pick out the waste to throw in into the truck.   I expect the same practice would happen at the barrels used at households. 

This would seem to be a very inefficient method of collection, but you need to put it all into context.  Why twice a week collection?  That seems expensive and unwarranted, especially in such a cold environment.  But, as we observed during our week in Rankin, the garbage bins are continually visited by Ravens.  Ravens are a very intelligent and strong bird.  If the garbage is left too long, the ravens will pick away at the garbage bags, tear them open and scatter them around.  They can make a real mess.   So the twice weekly collection reduces the mess that the ravens create.  

While we were here, the collection truck had a hydraulic line break and was out of service, so we could see what happens as the waste piles up in and around the bins.   Since there are only 2 mechanics in town, sometimes repairs can take quite some time as there is always a line up of vehicles to be repaired.  We haven't heard the status of the garbage truck repair, but I would hope it gets some priority on the repair list. 

One could also suggest that the method of collection is labour intensive, time consuming, and fraught with safety issues.   Automated collection is not an option here because of the snowfall that would make bin access difficult, if not impossible.   Costs of everything in this part of the county is high and garbage cans are expensive, but barrels are free.  There are lots of barrels because goods are brought in barrels, but the barrels never leave, so they are used for waste cans.

Jobs are scarce in communities like this, so adding extra labour to collect waste helps create needed jobs.  That is a benefit to the community in many ways.  I learned this a few years ago when I worked on a project for the Bahamas.  Garbage collection in that case was considered a 'make work' project, so 4 man crews made sense to them.  Here, the truck has a 3 man crew and runs 5 days a week. 

Rankin Inlet Landfill

The waste is taken to the local landfill on the outskirts of town.  Landfills in these northern communities tend to be close to town because there aren't many roads out of town, if any roads at all.  Most of the communities, as we have learned, practice open burning to reduce waste volume, but also because they need to discourage polar bears feeding at their landfill.  Rankin Inlet does not burn at their landfill because it is located too close to the airport runway.   The town has a new site that has yet to be used, but it is also close to the runway and burning will not be an option.    Also, as you might imagine, obtaining cover material for the landfills is difficult both because of the freezing temperatures and because of the type of geology many site are situated in. 

The Rankin Inlet landfill does not have a gate, nor is it manned.   This is also the normal practice in Nunavut.   When the town had planned to open the new site, word got around town, and mysteriously, the fencing that was around the site started to disappear.  Someone said that shortly after that, there was some nice chain link fencing that seemed to appear at the sled dog compounds that are around town.  

Nunavut Training

We've spent the past 5 days in a classroom with community public works staff from all across Nunavut.  These people came from places like Grise Fiord, Resolute Bay, Cambridge Bay, Arviat, Pangnirtung, Kimmirut.   The focus of the training program is hazardous wastes.  The time spent in Nunavut provides the background on the issues and methods to control improper disposal in the local landfills.   The course provides the basics of classify these wastes, how to properly store and how to prepare for transport.   The major obstacles that still exist are the cost of tranporting these wastes out, and the difficulty in finding reliable receivers of these materials in the south.  

In a few weeks time, the folks that came to the course will make a trip to Edmonton where they will be give additional training for CFC removal and certification, International Marine Transportation of Dangerous Goods, and they will be getting hands on experience in handling and sorting household hazardous waste at the City of Edmonton EcoStations.  They will also visit Edmonton area landfills and will be given a tour of Edmonton's world class waste management facilities. 

Metal Pile on Shore of Hudson Bay

At the end of yesterday's training, Arnie took us on a tour of the town for the second time.  This time he treated us to a trip across the ice on Hudson Bay.  It is quite safe because the ice is thick and the salt water is bouyant.  When we returned to town, we went by a water front property that was piled with old equipment and other metals.  We encountered large piles of metal in Iqaluit last year, and we've heard from all the communities of their rather large metal stockpiles.  In last years training course, 'Mike' told us about the very old and large metal pile at Cape Dorset.  We were skeptical until we 'google earth'd" cape dorset and could see the extensive outline of the metal he was talking about.  Basically everything that goes up to these towns, stays there.  A lot of the metal dates back to the 1940's and before.   There are options, but again, the financial resources are limited.

After we finished the course today, the folks from Cambridge Bay told me that they had a discussion the evening before and were going to make changes in the way they do things because of what they had learned over the past few days.  Cambridge Bay has a new landfill and had undertaken a large clean up of their metal piles over the past year.  The unfortunate part of this story is that the metal was burried - not recycled.  But that's the economic reality that they face with getting this material to a market.

This is the second year of training for Nunavut.   At some point, we hope to have developed trainers in Nunavut to take our place.   Unfortunately, that will mean that I won't have the great pleasure of traveling to Nunavut, enjoying the culture of the north, and working with these great people.  
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HHW Training in Nunavut

Today is our 5th day in Rankin Inlet for the Nunavut Hazardous Waste Training for the communities in the territory.  As it was last year, it has proven to be an interesting and very enjoyable experience.   I was initially involved in the development of the training manual about 4 years ago and it makes one feel rewarded when the people taking the course are so positive about what they are learning.  

Dealing with all waste materials, not just hazardous wastes, is a great challenge in this part of the country.  Community landfills are not designed or equipped to handle many materials as our landfills in the provinces to the south.  This is in part because of limited financial and knowledgeable resources.  Collecting these materials and sending them south is not an easy task.  It can be collected, but then shipping arrangements by ship or barge needs to be arranged and well planned out.  Obstacles to ship hazardous materials include not having local staff trained to handled, package, and prepare the proper paperwork to ship it out.  But that is part of what this training program will provide them. 

But even with all that, the other issues is finding somewhere to send the stuff that is collected.  Once it goes on the barge, it has to have some place to go.  The challenge is finding those places that will accept it and handle it properly.  Because it is going into other jurisdictions, the shipping process and necessary paperwork must also deal with the regulatory requirements in those other jurisdictions.  And in Canada, that can vary from Province to Province. 

Aside from the training, one of the great experiences we get out of the training is the opportunity to meet the Inuit people and learn about their culture and way of life in the north.  During my walks around town, I stopped a few people grabbed my interest.  I asked them if I could take their photograph, and all were not only willing to let me photograph them, but were genuinely happy to do so.   So here are a few of the photos that these folks let me take.