The Harsh Realities of Recycling in the Rockies

Lifting the lid on waste removal in the Canadian Rocky Mountains.


This article originally ran as "Out of Sight, Out of Mind" in the Winter 2014 issue of Highline Magazine.

"What's in the bag?" I whisper, watching the hairs on my buddy's neck stand on end. My accusatory heckle hisses through the shadowy night in a quiet residential neighbourhood in Jasper. I'm taking out the trash from a post-housewarming soiree. My friend, who didn't see me coming, is disposing of what looks to be his dog's fecal matter.

Meeting someone at the garbage is always a social occasion.

I'm slinking to the bins in the dead of night to dump a salmon carcass. I'm not sure if the remnants should go in compost or garbage, and frankly, I'll use the cloak of darkness to conceal my confusion. As for my buddy, he's just being a responsible dog walker.

Is he going to compost that? I wonder.

After seeing the unsorted mess that several inconsiderate "recyclers" have left in the cardboard, compost and garbage disposal containers lately, I have become wary of midnight dumpers. Over the last few weeks, with barely-repressed rage, I have discovered that, when it comes to properly sorting their refuse, some people in Jasper's newest housing development have not been pulling their weight. Smugly protective of my new neighbourhood's image (and known to rant when it comes to individual laziness that disrupts the collective harmony), tonight I am en guard. I am on self-appointed sanitary sentinel duty. I am a citizen on patrol.

Until it starts to feel weird.

It's easy for righteous writers, promise-prone politicians and naive neighbourhood watchers to make pronouncements appealing to our inner environmentalist, but managing our waste in Jasper, Banff and Canmore is like Oscar the Grouch's hoarding complex: it's complicated. Our increased awareness of the natural world is colliding with our ever-constant quandary of convenience over cost. And while there are lots of ways to tackle waste management, there is consensus that the consequences of managing it poorly will sell our future short, both environmentally and economically. In the Rockies, because of our communities' isolation, our close quarters with wildlife and the unique inputs and outputs of a high-volume tourism sector, the Three R's quickly turn into the Three C's: complexity, costliness and contradictions. Where to put the salmon bones is one thing; how to improve our waste diversion efforts is another kettle of fish altogether.

Bear proof = Blame proof

After I realize it's my friend in the shadows and not a hungry grizzly bear, a machete-wielding serial killer, or a gaggle of wine-cooler-drinking 16-year-olds (my worst fears, not necessarily in that order), I remember it wasn't so long ago in Jasper that the fear of bumping into a four-legged dumpster diver was a legitimate concern. Before the community had locking, ursine proof bins installed, black bears and even the occasional grizzly roamed Jasper backyards in search of tasty rewards.

"There was a time when bears were as common as dogs," remembers 87-year-old Jasperite, Wanda Garford. "You couldn't go down an alley without running into a bear."

Inevitably, human-wildlife conflicts were regular occurrences. As such, when locking-lidded infrastructure was installed in Canada's mountain parks in the 1980s, it was heralded as a great leap forward in managing how humans could live amongst wild animals.

But sealing the garbage off had another effect, although it would be years before it was identified as somewhat counter-intuitive to environmental best practices. In 2007, when the Municipality of Jasper conducted a waste audit, they learned that despite having implemented a residential recycling and compost program, the amount of materials which could have been diverted from the waste stream was more or less the same as when their recycling programs were nascent: somewhere around 30 per cent. And it hasn't improved much since. Those who were historically more inclined to sorting their waste — long-term residents who lived in single family dwellings — continued to do so, while those who were typically poor recyclers and composters — young people living in staff accommodations — remained negligent.

"[The diversion rate] has flat-lined. It's depressing," Jasper's Environmental Stewardship Coordinator, Janet Cooper, said in 2010.

At the root of the plateauing waste diversion rates is not just that 20-year-old lifties and weekenders are disinclined to sort their cardboard; rather it's the fact that they aren't compelled to do it — in fact, neither is anyone in Jasper