Last Saturday, as some friends and I wandered through Little Italy in the muggy afternoon, we stopped by the Jean-Talon Market. I noticed that new recycling bins have been installed inside the main market hall — recycling bins identical to those installed last year on McGill’s lower campus. Back then, I praised their ease-of-use and attractiveness and suggested that Montreal install them on its streets. One commenter pointed out a design flaw — the bins can’t be emptied when someone locks their bike to them — and another suggested that installing them city-wide would be prohibitively expensive thanks to the rising cost of metal. But, for the most part, I think they’re still a pretty good option.
That’s why I’m flabbergasted that City Hall and the borough seem to have abandoned all efforts to bring recycling bins back to the city’s streets. Since the last plastic containers were removed in 2003 or 2004, pedestrians have had no choice but to throw their recyclables into the trash. (They could keep them until they get home, or step into a building with private recycling facilities, but most people are too lazy for that.) Montreal is one of the most wasteful cities in Canada, producing more garbage and recycling less than people in Toronto and Vancouver, and we are absolutely shamed by some European cities that have taken great strides in cutting the amount of garbage they produce.
Hamburg in particular is an example we should follow. Since 1999, the amount of trash its citizens generate has actually decreased, despite a growing population, and 57 percent of trash is recycled. The rest is incinerated in low-pollution facilities; the ashes are then used to repave streets. There is now so much excess capacity in Hamburg’s incinerators that it has even agreed to temporarily import trash from beleaguered Naples, which ran out of landfill space last year and has letting rubbish pile up in its streets since then; a 56-car train full of waste will make a daily journey between the two cities from now until the end of summer.
In 1998, Quebec drafted a policy that would require Montreal to recycle 60 percent of its waste by 2008; four years ago, only 34 percent of our waste was recycled, and not much has changed since then. While individual institutions are making efforts to improve their recycling facilities, not much will change until the entire city takes a more aggressive approach to recycling. That would mean making recycling mandatory and instituting a system for composting organic waste like in Toronto. It also means installing recycling bins on the street: so where are they?
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Yes, Montreal’s recycling efforts have been pretty spotty and embarrassing, especially under the Tremblay administration.
Not too far from the Jean Talon market, there used to be a similar recycling station on Saint Laurent, near Mozart or Dante. It was always overflowing with garbage, never seemed to be emptied.
I don’t think it’s even there anymore. Can anyone comfirm that it was removed? And why? It doesn’t exactly engender confidence.
As someone who lived in Toronto for a few years, I can testify that the composting system there is fantastic. Garbage is collected only every two weeks. Recycling is still collected once a week.
Why is garbage collected twice a week here? Who needs that? If they cut that back to once a week or even less, they’d save money they could put towards composting. Even offering balcony composters at very low cost would help.
Even my parents’ town in New Brunswick has compost pick-up. It’s a little embarrassing.
One guess as to why Montreal has twice-weekly garbage pickup is that, compared to Toronto, where people either live in houses or apartment buildings with garbage chutes/collection areas, most Montrealers live in plexes or small apartment buildings with few places to keep garbage. Just a guess, though…
I would love a weekly curbside compostable-materials service in lieu of garbage 2x per week. love love love it. Compostable materials simply do not belong in a landfill. Landfills which are getting nearly full… Hello government.. anyone listening? (ha!)
I guess… To be honest, I don’t think I know anyone there who lives in an actual apartment building; they’re all in split-up houses (1st/2nd/3rd floors), over storefronts, and that sort of thing.
I think, like a lot of things, it’s a matter of habits, reliance, and unchallenged assumptions. When things change, people adapt. I think often people don’t give others or themselves enough credit for their ability to adapt to new realities.
The only garbage chute I’ve ever had was when I lived in Ville St-Laurent!
Actually, in my neighbourhood in Toronto garbage is picked up one week, followed by recyclables the next week. Only the “green bin” of compostable waste is picked up weekly whether it’s a garbage day or recycling day.
In the 90’s in Verdun they started the blue bag system, which is pretty much the same as garbage bags. One of the main problems with them is that they don’t fill up too fast and people living in flats tend to not like having them hanging around. I do not know how successful it is considered, but I would guess Verdun needs some work on recycling.
That’s interesting, because even here in Germany we usually don’t have recycling bins in the streets.
And believe me, people: Us Germans are normally REALLY fanatical about recycling.
In Frankfurt every apartment building has a bin for paper, one for recycling, one for compostable material and one for…well…waste. Then there is a system for returnable bottles (and beer crates!)and containers on the sidewalk for glass. These have three openings, by the way: One for brown glass, one for clear glass and one for green glass.
But recently there is some of discussion about separating everything by hand because the first prototypes of machines for separating “real” waste from recyclable materials are up and running. And guess what: They do a far better job with deciding what can be recycled and what can’t, than us humans!
That probably might be the best solution for Montréal as well: Just wait another year or two until all waste can be automatically separated and then buy enough machinery to process all thrash that way! Sure, you’ll loose the fun of “guessing the bin” but for the environment it will be the best…
I’ve seen at least one other set of bins in the outdoor part of the market (along an aisle where farmers sell fruit and veg). There was something strange about the subcontract for the bacs in Petite Italie – it may have been started as a publicity idea, and indeed they were always overflowing. I don’t think having rubbish in the same bac as recycling was a good idea.
I do wish we could recycle compostable waste – in Toronto this actually includes cat droppings (from the box) – don’t think I’d have much to actually throw in the trash if I could do that!
But recycling only every other week could get very, very heavy for people on the upper floor of triplexes.
There are other problems in Toronto – the smallest bins are too large for people with limited mobility (such as some seniors) to handle. Moreover the recycling scheme at the LCBO is a mess, as people who buy a bottle of wine have to take it back to the Beer Store, which might be nowhere nearby – it assumes that people have cars, and forces them to pollute in order to recycle. Guess there are always things to iron out.
Ingo, I’ve seen street recycling bins in Köln – guess it depends on the city. When I lived in Amsterdam, where bins are everywhere, it shocked me that glass, paper and I believe plastic were recycled, but not metal, not even aluminium! I found it very strange throwing tins in the rubbish bin.
Don’t people take empty beers back to the grocery in Germany? That is how it works in Netherlands.
Maria,
in Germany there has always (from my perspective ‘always’ means ‘since the seventies’) been a system of deposit/multi use for beer, bottled water and soft drinks. You can return the bottles or ‘crates’ to any grocery store. This still work exceptionally well for beer. However the one thing Germans seem to enjoy even more than recycling is buying food and drinks really, really cheap.
Now the problem is that the ultra cheap discount supermarkets like Aldi, Lidel or Penny don’t participate in the multi use system.
They sell water, soft drinks and beer real cheap in cans or single use plastic bottles. Since 2004, they are required to charge 25 cents of deposit and take back the bottles. So if you buy water at a Lidel supermarket the deposit is actually higher then the cost of the water you buy. But people seem to love it and the rate of multi use has actually dropped from 72 to 62 percent in recent years.
However I found the silver bullet for the water problem: I drink from the tap! 0% pollution and (if you live in the right area) really tasty, fresh water…
Regretfully, Toronto as well seems to have fallen behind of it’s lofty goals for 2008.
Recently however, new street recycling bins have begun to appear on the street, courtesy of a joint venture between the City and Astral Media.
The one difference between your new bins and ours, and is an improvement as far as I’m concerned, as that each of your bins is separate from the others, thus preventing spillage from one to another, and spoiling the separation process.
I’m also at a loss why Canada and Quebec seem to have such reluctance at taking charge of the trash disposal now, why the countries population is so low. Energy conversion seems to be the best way to go right now. Why is it such an issue, when it’s already been proven effective many times over, by smaller countries with larger populations?
Julie Fournier is wrong on one point…. She says recycling is picked up weekly in Toronto. Not true. It, like garbage, is on a bi-weekly pickup; garbage one week, recycling the next.
But as recently as the early 1990s Toronto had garbage pickup twice a week. So changes can happen, if a city makes the effort.
I am mexican and I have lived in Montreal from 2006 to 2008. I lived in Le Plateau and I think it is a place where people care about recycle. One of the problems that I saw is that the recycling and garbage has not our to been pick up. People leave those on the morning and at afternoon all those are in all the street for the wind. Maybe is a good idea to change those green bins for a close bins.
Since I came back to Mexico I have been trying to show my family the good side of recycle in many ways that I have learned in Canada. I am really interested in recycle cans and bottles like do supermarkets. Do you know where I can find that kind of information, since government do with laws, companies drinks and ending on supermarkets…