A small family-founded business in Canada's Yukon is remoulding plastic waste into durable combs, coasters, rings and soap dishes, with plans to expand into furniture and wholesale partnerships.

Yukon Plastics, founded in 2022 by Janna Swales and her young son Will, is operated out of their Whitehorse home. Using an injection moulding technique, plastic waste such as used jerrycans, yogurt containers and prescription medication bottles are melted and reshaped into objects sold by the company or its partner businesses.

Calling her company “a new form of resource extraction in the north,” Swales is aiming to tackle a plastic pollution problem with “useful and beautiful and durable, coveted products, whether they’re small or large.”

As an example, the plastic garbage it melts and reshapes can emerge from its machinery as a soap dish resembling multicoloured marble, swirling in a colourful blend of blue, white and orange.

With the help of a crowdfunding effort, she aims to grow her business into producing larger objects, with the goal of reusing a tonne of plastic waste this year.

Bringing beauty and value to waste

The museumist of the Yukon Transportation Museum for over 14 years, Swales’ background in history helped spark her interest in forming Yukon Plastics.

She oversaw an exhibition of the 80th anniversary of the Alaska Highway that was built during World War II. Its construction introduced plastics to Yukon, which had her thinking about plastic “not being waste, but being a material.”

Swales also had an interest in wood lathing, which transitioned into lathing plastics. Here, she thought about “transforming single-use or waste into multi-use durable products.”

Yukon Plastics, as Swales called it, is an extended family experiment to infuse value into waste plastics, with an emphasis on beauty.

The company receives its inputs from friends, family, local businesses, the community and even the occasional scrap the Swales family picks up from biking around their neighbourhood.

The waste is destined for the heated barrel of an injection molder where the plastic is melted. Next, it is injected onto a mold and hand pressed into various household objects. An example is a soap dish named “Will’s Dish”, designed by her son in the shape of a W.

The products are sold through its partnerships with Yukon businesses. One such partner is The Yukon Soaps Company, an Indigenous women-run business, which sends plastic jugs to Yukon Plastics to be reformed into soap dishes, which are then sold by the soap company.

Bringing sustainability and circularity

Yukon Plastics has recycled 300 kilograms of plastics to date, Swales said, and has the goal of diverting one tonne this year. With its current set-up, the company can produce approximately 10,000 to 15,000 products per year at full capacity.

The design choice to make their products thick ties into sustainability, Swales said. As it enhances the sturdiness, it means less future waste. Also, the products can be recycled again, though not endlessly because it degrades the quality of the plastic, she explained.

Around 90 per cent of Yukon’s electricity is from renewable sources, and Yukon Plastics uses electric equipment to power its operations.

If Yukon Plastics can grow to the point where sourcing plastic is a difficulty, the Swales family will consider the business a success, she said. She is also talking to the Yukon government to be paid for creating plastic diversion credits.

Yukon Plastics’ growth plan and crowdfunding

Swales’ goal for the year is to work with companies to make custom products which will be provided on a wholesale basis. Those include end tables and picnic tables, benches, fencing, decking and plastic lumber.

She expects to have those for sale by the end of the summer.

By expanding to furniture and construction materials, more plastic waste can be eliminated, Swales said.

The company has grown to five injection moulds and is receiving two full-time staffers to work the equipment as part of a summer youth work program. An additional step-up for the company is the plans to move into a mobile factory on a site owned by the Yukon Conservation Society.

To get the word out about its business, Swales is launching a Kickstarter campaign on Earth Day (today, April 22) to strengthen its B2B links. Hoping to raise $10,000, the crowdfunding will help her company scale up to meet its orders, add new products and strengthen its large product line.

If the goal is met, Yukon Plastics will be able to buy more equipment, hire staff to help make the larger items and secure a bigger workspace, Swales said.

“I think there’s a unique opportunity in Canada’s north to address issues that are nationwide issues.”