Iqaluit explores partnering with Qikiqtaaluk Corporation to handle waste management

With space running out at the landfill, officials with the City of Iqaluit say they need to move quickly to put its waste management plan into action.

The city is currently exploring whether it can strike a deal with the Qikiqtaaluk Corporation to take over the day-to-day waste management operations in the city.

The twosigneda memorandum of understandingApril 3 to explore whether the corporation would implement the city's solid waste plan that city council first approved in 2013.

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Details are still being hammered out, but a potential agreement could involve QC picking up the garbage, managing the landfill, recycling and compost, Iqaluit Deputy Mayor Romeyn Stevenson said.

"We're forced to have a timeline that's near," Stevenson said.

"Anyone who's been near our current landfill knows we don't have enough space to continue in a place that was supposed to be closed two years ago."

The city has long-planned to close the dump butcosts related to fighting a three-month long fire,known as "dumpcano,"put those plans on hold. The firealsoburned off enough garbage to keep it open until now, Stevenson explained.

"It created more space, but the cost of it ended up making progress more difficult as well," Stevenson said. "We're now in a position to move forward and it's going to be done quickly."

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There was another smaller fire at the dump last summer, though wood products mostly fuelled that blaze.

Stevenson expects more details on the possibility of an agreement tocome by the end of April.