Yellowknife’s downtown pop-up recycling shop has successfully wrapped up its first full summer and its organizer has big plans for the year ahead.
Jane Ann Swim, owner of Yellowknife’s Bottle Shop, said the pop-up began slowly but quickly gained traction as word spread.
By late summer, Swin said, the shop was drawing 50 to 60 visitors a day and even processed more than 10,600 containers in one busy week.
Swim said the main reason to start the initiative – which began on a trial basis late last summer, officially launched this May and ran until October 1 – was to offer an accessible location to drop off milk cartons, plastic bottles and other recyclables in the city’s downtown area, near Somba K’e Park.
Yellowknife already has a year-round uptown recycling depot on Old Airport Road.
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“We were super happy to have the downtown pop-up shop running [and] support people who couldn’t get to the Old Airport Road location,” Swim told Cabin Radio.
“I think the people that came downtown were extremely grateful that we were able to offer them a location that was more accessible.
“There are so many people who don’t drive. My goal was to be able to provide a service for people who have mobility restrictions or also for people who are over-stimulated.”
Jane Ann Swim and family outside The Bottle Shop. Photo: Submitted
Swim said the bottle depot can be noisy and sometimes have an odor, which can be difficult for people with sensory sensitivities. By contrast, she said the downtown location is a “much more pleasant experience.”
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“We had a lot of people that would throughout the summer make a day of bringing their containers and then having their kids play at the playground,” she said. “That was a really great experience for them, to be able to do two things at once.”
Swim said the shop also became an opportunity for the city’s vulnerable population to earn some money. Her favourite part was seeing how people online appreciated the convenience the pop-up shop offered to those who needed it most.
“What kind-of warmed my heart the most was it wasn’t just that people were using it,” she said. “People were acknowledging and grateful, and taking the time to make a comment on Facebook that they were grateful we were doing that.
“It seemed like the whole community appreciated that we were doing the service.”
A banner at the downtown pop-up bottle shop. Aastha Sethi/Cabin Radio
In total, Swim believes the downtown bottle shop had more than 1,000 visits this season – many from the same people, week after week.
The plan for next year is to set up the shop at the same location.
In the meantime, she hopes to find a heated indoor space to run a similar recycling shop during the winter. She is contacting the Salvation Army, local churches and other organizations to see if any locations are available for a few hours each week.
“There’s still a lot of people that didn’t know that we were offering the service,” she said, adding the shop would need a bit more advertising.
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“As far as indoors in winter, I’m still working on it, but it’s a bit of a challenge.”
Kristopher Wendehorst, a worker at the shop, said people alternated through shifts of two so everyone had a chance to help out. He said the downtown shop is far less busy compared to the one in uptown.
Wendehorst said locals usually bring $5-$20 worth of containers. Even on a slow day, he said the team would make at least 20 transactions.
“It’s a decent amount. There’s some days we run out of the cash we have on the float, but those are the busier days,” he said.
“It tends to be a bit less busy than the [uptown] shop so we get a little bit of a break from the madness of the Bottle Shop. But it is nice that we get to talk to people and help them out with their bottles.
“I get to talk to people, help people and be involved with the community.”
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