More than 100 people converged on Yukon College on Friday and Saturday to look at how to keep waste out of the landfill and move toward a zero waste society.

Over the weekend, conference delegates ranged from those working in the waste industry to government staffers and politicians.

They heard presentations on initiatives in other jurisdictions, and about behaviour and how that can impact waste reduction.

Others received a tour of the city’s landfill, the Raven Recycling Society’s facilities and the Mount Lorne transfer station.

Ben Derochie, Zero Waste Yukon’s co-ordinator, said he was pleased with the turnout – which saw delegates coming from across the North.

He was also pleased with the level of interest on each topic explored throughout the conference.

Presentations often ran longer than planned due to the questions those taking in each session asked. In some cases, the question and answers sessions had to be cut short due to timing.

“It was exciting,” Derochie said, noting he was pleased to see officials with various governments there throughout the entire conference.

The bulk of the events happened Friday and Saturday at the college.

An opening reception and public presentation with Christina Seidel from the Recycling Council of Alberta kicked things off last Thursday night at the Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre.

And a hackathon aimed at finding better ways of managing waste was also held as part of the conference.

Throughout the sessions, the message was clear: more waste needs to be diverted from general landfilling and more responsibility needs to be taken for waste, whether it makes its way to the landfill, recycling centres or elsewhere.

Those sentiments were echoed by political leaders who welcomed delegates and shared the work of their respective governments in dealing with waste.

As Mayor Dan Curtis noted in his welcoming comments last Thursday evening: “The current build, buy and bury model of consumption cannot be sustained.

“And when I say ‘cannot be sustained,’ I don’t mean in 40 years from now, I mean now, we’re seeing the effects of this type of waste consumption on our cities right now.”

He went on throughout his speech to stress the importance of recycling and other initiatives that can make a difference.

An example is like Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), which would see a fee attached to goods for packaging and waste to be dealt with at the end of the product’s life.

The city stressed its efforts in considering a mandatory city-wide blue box program (which has not yet been adopted) for those already on the city’s curbside collection program.

Behavioural psychologist Ruben Anderson, however, challenged the proposed program in his presentation Friday morning.

Throughout his speech, Anderson emphasized that the amount of conscious information any person can take in is limited.

While we often treat choice like it’s effortless, he said, it is in fact more like running a marathon.

Like any muscle, he said, our brain can become exhausted with the amount of decisions it must make.

Once it’s depleted of energy, it becomes increasingly difficult to make the conscious choices modern society asks of us, he said.

As examples, Anderson noted that people are asked to make decisions to use active transportation rather than drive, take shorter showers and so on throughout any given day.

“We have a lot of demands on our brain,” he told the standing-room-only crowd.

As a society, Anderson noted, systems have been developed to help people make those decisions – what day you put your garbage to the curb, which side of the road you drive on, etc.

“We can build systems that help us overcome our wiring,” he said.

As Anderson moved on to look specifically at the issue of waste in the Yukon, he noted much of the waste heading to the landfill comes from the industrial and construction sector, rather than from homes.

Given the challenges with “our limited attention span,” he then wondered the reason for bothering with a curbside residential blue box program when it’s the ICI sector that’s taking up more landfill space.

Both Curtis and Coun. Roslyn Woodcock defended the initiative.

As Derochie noted during another presentation, Curtis pointed out initiatives the city has taken that have impacted other sectors.

Those include ICI banning cardboard and moving forward with a compost collection option for businesses.

Curtis cited the curbside program as having a positive psychological shift for residents.

Woodcock also pointed out that the city is limited in what actions it can take. EPR fees and such are under the jurisdiction of the Yukon government, she said.

A curbside recycling program is one thing the city can do to effect change, she said.

“We have to keep chipping away at it,” she said.

As Derochie said: “It’s one of the steps.”

Both she and Derochie noted they hope to see further work by the Yukon government that would see EPR brought to the territory, and exploring further the mandatory fee on plastic bags that has been implemented in Yellowknife, an initiative delegates heard about over the weekend.

Community Services Minister Currie Dixon outlined work the territory has done.

He touched on community landfill transfer stations where waste is separated and the impending changes to the beverage container regulations to help keep waste out of landfill.

“There’s much more to be done,” he acknowledged.

Meanwhile, Sean Smith, a Kwanlin Dün First Nation councillor, also pointed to initiatives his government has underway in dealing with waste. Those include a community cleanup and reducing paper through the use of technology.

By the end of the weekend, Derochie and Woodcock said, everyone seemed set to move forward in working to keep waste out of the landfill.

“We want to use the momentum,” Derochie said after noting he’s already been asked by several delegates if Zero Waste Yukon will host another conference some time.

As Woodcock summed up, “I know everyone came out of it really energized.”