Dirty Montreal - Quest for a Solution to Litter

[franktko]

L'idée est très bonne, positif au lieu de juste du négatif.

Imagine aussi qu'après avoir publié une photo "à corriger" et d'avoir avertit le proprio, tu publies ensuite les efforts (si présents) qui ont été pris - un espèce de section "avant/après"... tu pourrais même offrir des mentions honorables à chaque année

[Newbie]

(Please read below for details) My suggestion for now: Call 311 or tweet @MTL_311 every time you see litter around (even if they respond with: "please call 311". It needs to be visible). Take a picture with your smartphone and tweet at them with a description of the location/address. They will eventually be forced to simplify and improve their system. See @SF311 (San Francisco) for a good reference.

 

I've been observing my neighbourhood (Plateau/Laurier) quite a bit. While I still think there is a lot more litter than similarly dense places in North America, residents themselves are not really that dirty. Cleaning crews are just too infrequent and/or ineffective.

 

I was in Santa Clara (Silicon Valley) recently. I stayed in a relatively dense commercial/residential area. The place is often absolutely spotless. However if you stay at a busy terrace during certain time in the afternoon, you may see a few napkins flying around, and the occasionally plastic bag or food wrapper around the supermarket. The kind of minor stuff you see normally in the cleanest areas of Montreal. Shortly after, however (or in the worst case early next day), the place would be back to being totally clean. One or two guys would walk around with a broom and a trash picker and would spot even the smallest pieces of litter.

 

Montreal's foot cleaning crews are very different. They are dispatched a few times a year and do a pretty decent cleanup job. Besides this, they seem to be sent a few days after someone complains to 311, which is very rare because we're all used to the litter. They send about 4 or 5 guys to a small area, and they often miss most of the litter, or are not really sure what they're supposed to clean up.

 

My point is that many upper-middle-class neighbourhoods in the US would be as dirty as neighbourhoods like the Plateau if they didn't dispatch a couple of obsessive compulsive street cleaners every day. I understand that these kind of jobs are more expensive or unionized in Canada, which may explain Montreal's system. But these hints that residents/culture are not the issue and should give us some hope

[Newbie]

This is a pretty common sight in the Plateau and the cause of 90% of its litter: People take out their garbage too early (one day in advance sometimes) and squirrels take care of the rest. In this case I've placed a temporary piece of paper on the tree for the infractor to read. It says to take out the garbage at the appropriate time (4pm-7pm Tuesday and Friday at this spot), NOT BEFORE. We'll see how they respond. Anyone can get the garbage days and times from here: Info-collectes