Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my riding, like others, there are no recycling facilities for paper, cardboard, and metals. With increased consumerism, waste reduction and recycling issues are essential. Our neighbours in the south in Edmonton, Alberta, have a world-renowned waste management facility. For us to not even have a recycling depot for cardboard and paper is unacceptable. We are further behind that we should be reducing pollution and waste.
Mr. Speaker, if you go to the dump in Fort Simpson, you will see piles and piles of waste cardboard and paper that could be recycled. Starting up a recycling facility would reduce our contribution to the landfill and the negative impact that the waste has on the natural environment. If government had a recycling program for paper and cardboard, we would increase the lifespan of our dumps, which in turn would help the environment.
In addition to the benefit of the environment recycling has, a new facility would provide a new industry for employment in my riding. Perhaps we could have a handler in each community, with the main facility being in Fort Simpson, where all the recycling for the riding is sent out. This possible structure could create at least one position in each community of my riding, as well as more positions at the main facility in Fort Simpson.
Mr. Speaker, we currently have a bottle depot in Fort Simpson for recycling cans, plastic, glass bottles, and electronics. We have a smaller bottle depot in the surrounding communities. The recycling depot in Fort Simpson could be expanded to become a crushing facility. Material could be sorted, crushed, and then sent out rather than being sent out sorted but not crushed. This would provide more employment in my riding.
Highlights from the NWT Waste Reduction and Recovery Program 2013-2014 Annual Report said, "An electronics recycling pilot project was initiated in September 2013 and collected over 7 metric tonnes of electronics." These results are astonishing. It would be great to introduce more recycling facilities in ridings for different materials so that the NWT can contribute to yielding such great results in recycling.
Mr. Speaker, the results of this pilot project were proven to be successful and electronic recycling has been implemented across NWT. Why not introduce a program for paper and cardboard now? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.