Waste Resource Management Strategy

The Government of the Northwest Territories released a Waste Resource Management Strategy and Implementation Plan to serve as a 10-year road map for improving waste resource management throughout the NWT.

The Strategy has four overarching goals:

1. Prevent and reduce waste at the source
2. Divert waste from disposal
3. Improve waste management facilities and practices
4. Lead by example, through initiatives that help us ‘green our government'

These goals are based on the waste management hierarchy and are intended to support a circular economy by fostering a shift away from the current disposal model to an integrated waste management approach. This will reduce the amount of waste from residential and non-residential sources sent to a landfill. It will mean putting more effort into preventing the creation of waste and diverting waste from landfills by reusing, repairing, refurbishing, remanufacturing, and recycling materials. The Strategy also focuses on improving the management of waste sent to landfills to minimize negative impacts.

Greening the GNWT is also part of the Strategy. This will include making improvements to government day-to-day operations to reduce the generation of waste and greenhouse gas emissions and the consumption of resources needed to make products used by government.

Waste Reduction and Recovery Act

The Waste Reduction and Recovery Act (Act) was enacted in 2003. The Act created a framework enabling the GNWT to implement programs to reduce, reuse, recycle and recover waste products/materials throughout the NWT, or ban certain materials damaging to the environment.

Environment Fund

The Environment Fund is a special purpose fund defined under the NWT Financial Administration Act. It was established under the NWT Waste Reduction and Recovery Act to handle all income and expenses of waste reduction and recovery programs and initiatives.

This fund can only be used for waste reduction and recovery purposes. Any surplus revenue in the Environment Fund is used to help create new waste reduction and recovery programs and initiatives.