Listen In Folks - Why Raven went to the Ombudsman over Community Recycling Contracts with the Yukon Government
Raven ReCentre recently launched a complaint with Yukon Ombudsman over being left off the Yukon Government’s tender for processing Community Recycling material, a program that we have supported for over 30 years. Listen in as Executive Director, Shannon Powell and Yukon NDP leader Kate White speak with Elyn Jones on Yukon Morning about:
Why is the ombudsman looking into the Yukon Government’s Recycling Contract processes?
What Impact does this have on Raven?
What Impact does this have on the community?
Here are the highlights:
“To learn that right now, they [Raven] are essentially being hampered by the business of recycling by the Yukon Government is entirely unacceptable.”
- Kate White, NDP Leader
What is important to know here?
The community depots and the public drop-off are two separate programs. The public drop off primarily served Whitehorse, but for the last 30 years, Raven has been supporting community recycling efforts through processing materials coming from communities through the Community Recycling Program.
Executive Director, Shannon Powell explains, “our public drop we closed that down to support the government in their Extended Producer Regulation. We realized that we needed blue box when that regulation came in. So we closed the public drop off and lost that revenue so that everyone would have that blue box on their doorstep, and it would get to more individuals. That’s always been Raven’s goal, to get recycling to more people as not everyone has a car. [The public drop-off is] a very separate program. The community depots don’t have that program, they don’t have blue box coming to the doors. They know that that is a very separate program. The community depots [recycling material] come in trucks. When we closed the public drop off, we were very clear with the government that we would still want to receive them and we’ve been in communications with them since May about this, and they still took these actions against us.
This is really impactful to all of Yukoners. Raven is a not-for-profit so anything we make, we give back to community. So if you’ve had your child come home and say they had a presentation on recycling, that’s us putting our profits into sending people into the classroom; if they’ve come and done a tour, again that’s us; if you’ve recently come and bought a winter coat for your child for dollars at our Reuseful Thrift Store, that’s us putting our money into programming for Yukoners. So for us that’s really impactful because it impacts all the programs that we offer for Yukon.”
Listen in to learn more.
Raven Recentre’s ProGrams:
Bottle Depot
Metals & Battery
PaperSave Program for Whitehorse Businesses
Community Recycling Program
E-Waste
Zero Waste Programs (i.e. education programs, events and capacity building)
Glass Processing
Tool Library
Expanding Raven Reuseful, our “relatively free” store