Whitehorse curbside recycling group reports spike in clientele

Business is booming for the Yukon Blue Bin Society, a Whitehorse organization that offers curbside recycling pickup, as its number of subscribers has nearly tripled since February.

"In February we had about 230 subscribers, I believe, and now we're over 630," said TaylorTiefenbach, the society's general manager.

"Every time we moved into a new neighbourhood we saw a big jump. The first month we were in Hamilton Boulevard I think we had close to 90 people sign up."

The society started collecting recyclables in 2012.It's grown to six employees collecting recyclables from 10 Whitehorse neighbourhoods.

"We've always treated it as a business, as in we wanted to be self sustaining, we didn't want to rely on grants and things like that," Tiefenbach said.

"Our only source of revenue is our subscriber fees."

The City of Whitehorse is looking at options for its own recycling program, includingthe possibility of curbside recycling pickup. It isn't clear yet how that work, but if it's contracted out, Tiefenbach says Yukon Blue Bins is ready.

"We know that it's going to be a competitive process and that there are other people in town that are interested and that they're going to put in a competitive offer as well."

The city wants to cut the amount of garbage going into the landfill in half by the end of next year.