Canada/Forcing waste reduction
Whether by reducing the frequency of garbage collection or charging for waste produced above a certain threshold, municipalities want to encourage their residents to opt for composting and recycling rather than landfill. These changes are causing quite a stir, as noted by ICI Première's Ça nous regarde program.
The sidewalk and lawn are littered with paper, bags and bottles.
The fact that we don't collect the garbage every week means that it just blows away. It's really dirty," complains Louis Boucher, owner of residential buildings in Montreal.
He believes that the spacing of garbage collection, which is now done every two weeks in the Mercier-Hochelaga-Maisonneuve borough in eastern Montreal, has something to do with it.
These are good ideas from civil servants in an office, but they don't go out into the field! They don't understand reality. They've never owned a building, managed tenants or dealt with waste.
A quote from Louis Boucher, residential building owner
In his opinion, the reduction in collection frequency should not apply to residential buildings.
Tenants come and go. They also have roommates. There are families, some with babies, so there are diapers. Some have cats, so there's litter," he says.
After a pilot project in certain Mercier-Hochelaga-Maisonneuve neighborhoods, the spacing of the collection was extended to other sectors and will cover the entire borough this fall.
Its recent introduction is still causing confusion. In front of some buildings, garbage garbage cans are overflowing, and stale black bags remain for two weeks on the sidewalk or along alleyways.
The borough maintains that, for the measure to work, composting is essential, since almost half the contents of the garbage bag are organic matter.
For Louis Boucher, however, a second attempt at composting in his 20-unit building is out of the question.
We've had thousands and thousands of flies everywhere. My super doesn't want anything to do with it. Neither do the tenants," he insists.
Forcing change
The city makes no secret of the fact: the aim of staggering garbage collection is to force recycling and, above all, composting, which are still collected on a weekly basis.
In Montreal, the participation rate in compost collection is only 35%, whereas the city wants it to reach 60% by 2025.
If we don't impose some kind of constraint, participation won't happen.
A quote from Marie-Andrée Mauger, Environment Officer for the City of Montreal
At the moment, one person in three in Montreal participates in organic waste collection. That's not enough when you consider that collection is not optional, but mandatory," she says.
One of the reasons for these changes in waste management is to comply with Quebec's Environment Quality Act, which requires municipalities to reduce the amount of waste they produce.
There is also the limited capacity of existing landfill sites, such as Terrebonne, where Greater Montreal sends half of its garbage.
There is only one landfill near Montreal, and it was expected to be at full capacity by 2029. Last year, the site managers said it would be 2027 instead. It's filling up fast," worries Marie-Andrée Mauger.
For the moment, apart from Mercier-Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, Saint-Laurent is the only borough to have spaced out its garbage collection, excluding multi-dwellings. Other boroughs will follow suit over the next few years.
Of course, in multi-dwellings, space is a challenge when it comes to installing the brown bin. But, insofar as no more material is generated - it's just different - we can reduce or even eliminate the amount of waste generated.But, as long as no more material is generated - it's just different - we can reduce or rearrange the space devoted to waste, suggests Ms. Mauger.
The borough of Saint-Laurent has set up community containers outside buildings, which Louis Boucher applauds.
Now that's interesting! If there's no room, why not do community composting? Bins placed in a corner of a park, for example. And those who want to do it, they bring their bags," he suggests.
However, this is not an option favored by the city.
What we see in the multiplex is that the more anonymity there is, the easier it is not to participate," explains Marie-Andrée Mauger. Also, what we've seen with the outdoor bins is that they attract illegal dumping. There are unsorted bags. And you can carry on as if nothing had happened. That's not the behavior we're looking for.
Charging for waste
Other cities, like Gatineau, have gone even further than spacing garbage collections. They charge for extra bags of waste. A measure that comes under the heading of eco-taxation.
We've taken a gradual approach," explains Chantal Marcotte, Director of Residual Materials at Ville de Gatineau.
The changes in residual materials management began in 2010 with composting and a reduction in the frequency of residential garbage collection.
For multi-dwellings, the change came in 2018. At the same time, we reduced the number of bulky waste collections, and in 2019, we introduced user fees for residences only," she explains.
We kept the bi-weekly collection and reduced the volume of waste. It's now a maximum 120-litre garbage can, and those who have excess will have to pay.
A quote from Chantal Marcotte, Director of Residual Materials at Ville de Gatineau
At first, extra waste had to be contained in bags bearing the City's logo, sold at a cost of 50 cents each. Now, Gatineau residents must purchase tags at $2.15 each and affix them to their extra garbage bags.
The $2.15 represents what it costs the Town to manage one bag with the current contracts, and the cost will be revised according to actual costs," she explains.
Implementing all these measures has not always been easy. Elected officials were criticized, there were complaints and resistance.
We experienced a tsunami of behavioral change. Yet there wasn't that much discontent. We had 450 requests when the 120-litre garbage can was reduced on around 140,000 doors in a population of around 300,000, but those who were against it shouted loudly," points out Chantal Marcotte.
Nevertheless, Gatineau has pursued its objectives, and the results are in: in 10 years, waste tonnage has fallen from 60,000 to 45,000, a reduction of 25%, according to the city's calculations.
And there's more to come, warns Ms. Marcotte. Other measures are to come in the next few years, including pricing in multi-dwelling units in 2025.
There's going to be another little tsunami," she predicts, "but the city is going to support landlords. A team may even go out to meet tenants.
No new dumps
Why did we ever think of going this far? Well, it's the major problem we have with technical landfill sites. There's less and less space to build new ones, and the costs are extraordinary, with outcry and 'not in my backyard' syndromes every time," explains Marc Olivier, chemist and professor-researcher at the Centre de transfert technologique en écologie industrielle, located in Sorel-Tracy.
Setting up a landfill is even more controversial than the obligation to compost or recycle," he says. So cities are opting for the latter.
On the other hand, it's not surprising that they choose to space out garbage collection, he adds, because of the "net zero mileage" principle.
You can't implement one collection [composting, for example] without reducing another. The sum of all the kilometers covered by the trucks in a month has to be the same. It's a question of social acceptability, because if you put in more collections, people say: 'There are going to be too many trucks, the city is going to be more congested and noisier'," explains Mr. Olivier.
He believes in thanking people for their efforts to compost or recycle.
And it's about creating added value regionally," he says. To have local industrial facilities that can create economic activity locally from the garbage that citizens have sorted. That's the way to thank them and reward them for the efforts they've been making for a long time.
That's what the City of Montreal is going to do," assures Marie-Andrée Mauger.
Right now, we're building two major organic matter processing infrastructures. In Saint-Laurent, we're going to make compost, an agricultural-grade fertilizer, and in Montréal-Est, we're going to set up a treatment center to make renewable natural gas. So, all our organic matter will be processed locally on the island of Montreal," she asserts.
Source: ici.radio-canada.ca/
