About Janna Swales
Creative and thoughtful, Janna is excited to develop useful and beautiful homewares from the Yukon’s waste plastic. She smiles when she refers to it as “a new form of resource extraction in the Canadian north”.
She is an avid adventurer, Northern historian and delights in finding new ways to understand the world and ourselves. “The history of the Yukon has, until fairly recently, been a circular economy focused on ingenious reuse”.
Rethink waste as an untapped resource – infuse it with beauty – give it new life!
Yukon Plastics
Janna Swales
Yukon Plastics repurposes Yukon waste plastic into exquisite products. Five years ago, their founder, Janna Swales, who was researching historical supply chains, became interested in the supply chain movements of recycling. She marvelled at the immense distances at play within the global recycling industry and its enormous economic, human and environmental cost: she wondered if she could rethink it. Our goal is to scale up to divert a consequential amount of Yukon plastic from the waste stream.
The Yukon Plastics team, Janna and her son and colleague Will, as well as several dedicated and delightful staff, have been working with reforming waste plastic for several years. Will likes exploring the outdoors, military history, and computer science, Janna is a retired historian, an avid canoer, cyclist and adventuring historian.
Acknowledging that we live and work in the traditional territory of the Kwanlin Dün First Nation and the Ta’an Kwäch’än Council.
