Published 8:10 am Wednesday, December 10, 2025 By William Koblensky Varela, Local Journalism Initiative Northern News Services The City of Iqaluit will study a business case for machines to collect empty beer cans, four months after the only local recycling facility stopped refunding deposits. Former GN minister responsible for the Nunavut Liquor and Cannabis Commission, Lorne Kusugak, had made this winter the target start date for a new recycling operation at the city’s yet-to-open waste transfer station. A motion by city councillor Amber Aglukark to look into buying machines that receive beer cans and refund the recycling deposits to customers passed unanimously on Nov. 25. Deputy mayor Kimberly Smith seconded the motion. Bill Williams, senior executive director of municipal infrastructure and planning, explained to council how his department would examine the business case for the reverse vending machines. “If any of you have been to Greenland or into parts of Quebec, they have these machines where you can put the cans in, and it gives you your deposit right at the machine. No staffing required,” he said. The municipal government will now look into how much the costs will be to buy the machines and to have them emptied regularly, before entering into negotiations with the GN on how to manage the system. “The program is designed to operate on a full cost-recovery basis, and that would be the only way we would recommend that to council,” said Williams. He advised, however, that finding a program that works for both the city and the GN will prove challenging. “We anticipate there will be heavy upfront capital costs, which will need both a commitment from the government and Nunavut prior to being able to bring it to council for approval,” Williams said. The exact cost of the machines won’t be known until vendors are consulted. Coun. Romeyn Stevenson proposed the reverse vending machines could also accept all aluminum, and not just beer cans. Williams clarified that the machines would just receive the cans and that the GN would be responsible for shipping them south to recycling plants. One Iqaluit man has taken it upon himself to clean up the city’s streets of beer cans. Derek Allerton said he’s picked up 5,000 beer cans since July 3 using a trash grabber while on walks with his dog. The proposal from the city will need to overcome some hurdles, according to Allerton. “Reverse vending machines need to be operated in a sheltered environment. The large volumes of cans to be returned for deposit [over 100,000 per month based on previous rates at the old recycling depot] would necessitate multiple machines,” Allerton said. Two million cans were were recycled annually through the previous contractor, Northern Collectibles, who had run the operation since 1994, according to the GN’s Department of Finance. There’s also a question of time, Allerton argued. The municipality is only looking at the business case for vending machines now. Meanwhile, beer cans continue to litter the streets because there’s no refund incentive to dispose of them. “What are people with cans to do before then?” Allerton asked. While the city ponders the logistics of setting up reverse vending machines, a target start date for the GN to open a new recycling facility for beer cans has now passed. On Sept. 16, then-minister Kusugak told the legislative assembly he wanted to see a beer can recycling depot open up “hopefully before winter sets in” at the city’s waste transfer station, which is not yet in operation. There is still no timeline to open the city’s new $35-million waste transfer station and landfill — facilities that were greenlit in 2018. “If I was the city, the new waste transfer station is where I would install reverse vending machines,” Allerton said. Northern Collectibles announced it would stop accepting the aluminum beverage containers on July 12, saying the process was more trouble than it was worth. The GN had been looking into alternatives to Northern Collectibles since last summer, Kusugak said.
City of Iqaluit considers purchase of beer can deposit machines
