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I've lived in Montreal almost 10 years, and I've come to the pretty clear conclusion that we have a huge litter problem in the city. I've decided to start a conversation and to try to do something about it, so I'm going to go ahead and gather some thoughts, and I invite anyone interested in the subject to pitch their ideas. Step 1. Admit there is a problem. It seems that this is one of the hardest steps for us to take. Try taking a walk down a couple of residential streets in the Plateau for example, or up Du Parc or Cote Des Neiges. Have someone from another city visit you. A couple of people from Latin America have said to me something like "people here are disgusting" while looking at all the litter in the street. I've pointed out how offensive this is by the way (it's common in some Hispanic cultures, including my own, to say things like this), and I don't think the same way, but it does highlight our litter problem. A friend who lives in New York thinks that Montreal doesn't "need" to be this dirty. Many arguments against the idea that Montreal is dirty are based on comparisons to other cities; "it's the same everywhere." Although I don't think this invalidates the point that Montreal streets are dirty, I'm also sure that it is not the same everywhere. You don't find this much litter in dense neighbourhoods of Chicago for example. Other arguments are about Winter, but then again, just take a walk today. It hasn't snowed in months. You may not notice the issue if you have lived here since childhood, but visitors do notice it, and people from outside of Canada are the most surprised. Step 2. Identify the direct causes of the problem. There are many causes of this problem. I'd like to identify the direct ones, even if they are not to be tackled directly. Let me explain what I mean; Instead of saying "there are not enough garbage cans" I will say "Many people don't wait to see a garbage can before they dispose of their garbage". It is important to understand direct causes because it allows us to break paradigms and think of the problem from different perspectives. Here is the list of direct causes I have noticed over the years (in no particular order): 1) Many pedestrians don't wait to see a garbage can before they dispose of their garbage. 2) Many drivers throw litter from their vehicles. 3) Many residents dispose their garbage outside without using proper garbage bags. 4) Many residents dispose their garbage outside during the wrong hours/days (see the next point). 5) Garbage bags are attacked by squirrels and other animals, as well as by people looking for cans to recycle. 6) Often garbage bins/cans overflow. 7) Garbage collection is often done without care, letting some of the litter fall off the bins and trucks. 8) Many people leave their litter behind in public parks and squares. 9) Sometimes wind blows garbage out of bins/cans. 10) Many smokers throw their cigarette butts on the ground. I'm going to pause here for now, but I'd like this conversation to go on and produce ideas and solutions. Feel free to give me your thoughts!

Pas de Camion à Déchets dans le QDS Source: Spacing Montreal There aren’t going to be any dump trucks blocking up the streets in Montreal’s new Quartier des Spectacles. Last Wednesday, the City approved a proposition to replace public trash cans with receptacles for garbage, recyclables and compostables, all hooked up to an vacuum-powered collection system. Waste placed in each receptacle would be sucked into a network of underground tubes and transported to a central processing location (possibly located in Place Desjardins). At first glance, this system may seem unduly costly and invasive, not to mention energy intensive. But since the streets in the QDS are already slotted to be ripped up in order to replace ageing sewers, aqueducts and power-lines, throwing in the waste-collection system will only cost an additional $8.2 million (according to a planner who worked on the proposal). Under the new system, garbage collection in the neighborhood would rely on electricity rather than fossil fuels, which may not be a bad idea given the cost and environmental impacts of burning fuel. Most importantly, the new garbage collection system would also apply to residents and businesses located in the Quartier des Spectacles. For instance, the restaurants in Place Desjardins would be able to be compost food scraps, saving several hundred tons of waste from landfills each year. Although Montreal is behind cities like Toronto who offer composting for household waste, this initiative would be the first in North America to offer composting on the public domain and for businesses. ENVAC, the European company that engineers these systems worldwide, built their first trash-vacuuming system in Stockholm in 1961 and it is still in operation (it has an expected lifespan of about 50 years, although that is probably standard for sewers and other infrastructure). Teaching the hoards of drunken festival-goers and clueless tourists to sort trash from recyclables and organic waste is a challenge for the future…

(Courtesy of The Montreal Gazette)

Hi! I hope this post is not miscategorized. Since I moved to Montreal I have been looking forward to seen these old garbage cans replaced: They are too small, break easily, are always leaking, and most of them have lots of garbage under them which looks really bad (I don't even know how it gets there though I have a few theories). Anyway, in 2007 I found out that Michel Dallaire (the BIXI industrial designer) was to design new benches and garbage cans for downtown: http://www.ledevoir.com/2007/12/17/168881.html In 2008, renderings of the new designs appeared on his website: http://www.dallairedesign.com/flash/index.html And after that nothing happened. Is there any way to know what happened to this? Are they ever going to be replaced?

Ce n'est peut-être pas la meilleure source sur le recyclage montréalais, mais bon, je suis tombé sur cet article qui décrivait la situation à travers le pays... Recycling rates vary greatly across nation Municipalities that make it easy for people to dispose of garbage have higher diversion rate Jul 16, 2007 04:30 AM Kristine Owram Canadian Press Statistics Canada says Canadians are recycling and composting more than ever before, but whether they compost their coffee grounds or recycle their milk cartons seems to have a lot to do with where they live. While cities like Montreal and Calgary struggle to divert even a third of their waste from landfills, others expect to be recycling or re-using up to 90 per cent of their solid waste within a few years. In Markham council has been working for years to find ways to divert as much waste as possible from landfills. Through a combination of public education and pilot projects, they've managed to reduce the amount of waste headed to the dump to just 30 per cent. Regional councillor Jack Heath, chairman of Markham's waste diversion committee, said the solution was simple: picking up recyclable and organic waste – blue boxes and green bins – twice as often as garbage. "If you want to throw your banana peels and your dirty diapers in the garbage, you can hang onto them for two weeks," Heath said. "Or, you can throw them in the green bin and we'll collect them every week." Heath said all it took to reach 70 per cent diversion – a rate Toronto, which currently sits at about 42 per cent, has set as a "long-term goal" – was a little political will. "People had some trepidation, but after a few weeks they said, `This isn't that difficult,'" he said. "It was the strong will of council to solve the problem that basically changed the system, and that's how we got to where we are." Statistics Canada's Households and the Environment Survey, released Friday, found the proportion of household waste recycled by Canadians increased from 19 per cent in 2000 to 27 per cent in 2004. The survey also found that 27 per cent of Canadian households composted in 2006, up from 23 per cent in 1994. In Edmonton, councillors brought the public on board by making it easy for them to recycle, said Garry Spotowski, a spokesperson for the city's waste management division. Edmonton has been a trailblazer in the field of waste diversion since 1988, when the city became one of the first in North America to introduce a blue-box recycling program. Many cities, including Ottawa and Vancouver, ask residents to separate paper from metals, plastics and glass. Most cities ask residents to throw organic waste in green bins, separate from the rest of their garbage. Edmonton residents, however, need only put recyclables in blue bags and the rest into garbage bags; the city takes care of all the sorting, Spotowski said. "Instead of going to a landfill, it goes to the Edmonton composting facility, where it's sorted and any material that doesn't compost is screened out," he said. "It's actually very simple. We emphasize convenience as much as possible." The city currently diverts about 60 per cent of its waste from the dump, but that figure is expected to reach 90 per cent within a few years once a new "gasification" facility opens to convert residual waste into gas for heating, transportation and producing electricity, said Spotowski. Larger cities like Toronto, however, are struggling to catch up. In 2002, Toronto's Keele Valley landfill site was closed and the city began shipping its garbage to Michigan for disposal. At that point, the city had a waste diversion rate of only about 25 per cent, said Geoff Rathbone, Toronto's director of solid waste programming. Since then, the city has introduced a green bin program, which it will extend to apartment buildings and other multi-family homes by next year. It also plans to introduce a new pay-as-you-toss system for garbage. All this will contribute to the city's 10-year plan to increase diversion to 70 per cent, Rathbone said. Halifax is close behind Edmonton with a diversion rate of 55 per cent. Although they ask residents to separate organics from recyclable containers from newspapers from garbage, they take a similar approach to ensure nothing gets left behind. "You know you'll never have 100 per cent compliance, meaning that hidden inside that black garbage bag, you'll still have some items that shouldn't be there," said Jim Bauld, manager of solid waste resources for the Halifax Regional Municipality. "So every bag is opened." http://www.thestar.com/News/article/236301

Solar power trash bins hit Montreal streets Last Updated: Monday, May 28, 2007 | 5:30 PM ET CBC News The BigBelly garbage cans use solar panels to generate power. (Steve Rukavina/CBC) The City of Montreal is going solar in its bid to clean up downtown streets. The Ville-Marie borough has launched a pilot project starring BigBelly, a "green" garbage can that uses cordless compaction technology. The sun-powered trash cans compact garbage using solar energy, and can hold up to five times the volume of regular garbage cans. Compacting garbage reduces the need for trash collection and could decrease the all-too-common Montreal sight of overflowing rubbish bins.