Rankin Inlet has added a metal shredder machine to its municipal fleet and the possible results look quite promising for the community, according to its mayor.
Harry Towtongie said the idea behind purchasing the shredder is that the local landfill contains an incredible amount of metal.
He said the hamlet has to get rid of that somehow and make room at the dump, and that's where the shredder and some planning come into play.
"Also, what we want to do is keep the community a little cleaner and have a less bulky dumpsite," said Towtongie. "We've already taken back a few sections at the dump and it's good to see those areas with next no nothing in them now.
"It's really kind of amazing and a really interesting thing to watch in action when it shreds a truck in 10 minutes."
The Rankin Inlet shredder is a brand-new machine and comes with a price tag of $800,000.
Towtongie said the hamlet got lucky a couple of times in making a deal for the machine in terms of obtaining some funding and that Agnico Eagle Mines brought the equipment in by ship at no cost.
"We just couldn't let that deal go by," said Towtongie. "We just did our part and they did their part and we made it work.
"We actually bought it this past winter. We then had to work on getting it up here through customs and all that stuff. It went through OK, got on a ship and now it's here."
Towtongie said the hamlet's not going to tackle vehicles this year, opting instead to take care of all the scrap metal for now. He said the shredder will make a great difference up at the dump over the next four or five years.
"There's so much metal up there that it makes you wonder where did all that metal come from?
"But, with all the construction, Rankin growing so fast and us taking in about 100 new vehicles now every summer, that metal really starts adding up.
"It's truly an interesting machine. It took us about 20 minutes to drive it about half a mile. It's slow, but it gets there. And, you can operate it like a Nintendo machine because it operates by remote control. It's wireless controlled, with no manual operation required at all.
"The shredded machinery and domestic garbage can also almost be used as landfill. You can spread it out and cover it with gravel to produce a new, fairly smooth surface. Hopefully this will all work out and the new shredder will be a tremendous bonus for the community."
