Whitehorse has come a long ways in how it manages its garbage. In the early days, trash was dumped on the banks of the Yukon River and eventually pushed into the water. In the 1940s the American Army opened a dump by a cliff off of Range Road. Again, the debris was just pushed over the edge.

This approach lasted until 1976 when the City began burning its garbage and putting the residue in the War Eagle Pit, an abandoned quarry pit. Waste oil was disposed of in one part of the pit, and when this hole never filled up, people realized that the surrounding rock must be porous.

After ten years, concerns about ground water contamination led to the opening of the Son of War Eagle pit, the territory's first sanitary landfill. Landfilling, or covering garbage with dirt, is an expensive way to dispose of trash, so the City is getting ready to take another big step forward in its efforts to reduce the amount of waste that goes into the pit.

On October 1, Whitehorse will begin charging tipping fees at the dump. People will pay $1 per visit when they drop off up to eight bags of garbage. Bigger loads will be weighed and there will be a charge of $15 per ton. The fees are primarily aimed at reducing the amount of commercial waste that goes into the dump.

Jacqueline Hynes, the City's environmental coordinator, says this fee is actually quite low compared to other parts of the country. In southern Ontario, tipping fees range from $100-$150 per ton.

Tipping fees are standard in most parts of the country, and have been shown to reduce the amount of waste delivered to dumps by anywhere from 15 to 45 percent. Hynes says that the goal for Whitehorse is about 30 percent.

The City wants to make garbage collection more of a user-pay system. Hynes says that now businesses do not have a financial incentive to reduce waste because it is cheaper to have everything hauled to the dump. "We want to level the playing field so that businesses do have an incentive to separate their garbage," she says.

Canadian Tire is one example of a business that already separates its waste. As shipments are unloaded, cardboard is put into a separate dumpster and hauled straight to Raven Recycling. Now, in addition to being a good corporate citizen, Canadian Tire will also pay lower tipping fees than businesses that do not separate out cardboard and other recyclable materials.

The City is aiming for a 50/50 split on costs for running the dump. Half would come from tipping fees, the other half would come from taxes. Lower taxes for both businesses and residences will help to offset the new fees.

All residences will get a tax break of 1.7 percent. Households with city garbage collection will have a monthly fee of $2 added to their bills. Hynes says the $2 fee will cover costs for the average amount of waste that a household throws out.

Hynes says that during public consultations on the new fees, some people encouraged the City to go even further and make users pay the full costs of operating the dump. "In some places people pay for every bag you put out. That seemed like too big of a step for right now in Whitehorse," says Hynes. "So that is where Waste Watch comes in."

The Waste Watch program is the City's main strategy for reducing residential garbage. Hynes says that this successful program has proven that people can cut their garbage in half by composting alone. The tipping fees will be the main way of reducing commercial waste.

Another change at the dump will be a $4 charge for dropping off tires. The almost 300,000 tires now piled up at the dump present a huge fire hazard, and Hynes says this fee is the only option that the City has for regulating the disposal of them.

Hynes says the City is pleased with the progress that it has already been making on garbage reduction. She estimates that in 1997 the amount of garbage going into the dump was reduced by 20 percent.

Together the existing Waste Watch program and the new tipping fees are expected to reduce the amount of waste by another 30 percent. Reaching this goal would extend the life of the dump by about ten years.

For more information on the City's management of solid waste, contact the environmental coordinator at 668-8312.