Montreal-area cities finding ways to reduce garbage winding up in landfills

Municipalities in the Montreal area are looking for ways to reduce garbage volumes and add less stress to landfills.

Cities across the Greater Montreal region are facing growing challenges and employing different approaches to reduce the amount of waste that ends up in landfills.

Some are using incentives such as tax rebates, while others are using a pay-as-you-throw approach.

In Lorraine, a suburb of around 10,000 people north of Laval, garbage trucks come by weekly, but residents must pay if they exceed 12 garbage collections per year.

“When we first moved here, we didn’t realize that it was only 12 a year and then we got charged,” said resident James Lapierre. “Now we try to compost more and recycle, but otherwise, we just do one a month.”

Lorraine Mayor Jean Comtois said the town had to do something to lower the amount of garbage generated.

In 2020, they started to use bins embedded with chips to track each pickup.

“Our objective was to reduce landfill waste for the sake of the environment,” he said. “But at the same time, we are helping our citizens save money and change their habits, which is the best of both worlds.”

While some have criticized the change for penalizing families who may generate more garbage, Comtois said many residents are changing their habits.

Last year, he said 40 per cent of households took out their bins 12 times or less, compared to 28 per cent in 2020.

Other cities have taken a different approach to reducing pickups.

The on-island Montreal suburb of Beaconsfield was an early adopter of using technology to track and cost waste.

RFID chips were installed in bins in 2015.

Andrew Duffield, director of sustainable development for Beaconsfield, said it has helped to greatly reduce the amount of garbage that goes to landfills.

“The charge for a resident is based on the size of bin they choose and the number of times they put it out in a given year,” he said.

Residents pay a fixed cost for 12 pickups, depending on the size of the bin, and then an additional rate if they exceed that amount.

Although many communities have gone to biweekly pickup, Duffield said they chose to have the trucks pass by each week, which produces less greenhouse gas than the frequent stops and starts generated by biweekly pickups.

He said it also gives residents more choice about when they take their bin to the curb.

The city has also increased its collection of organic material and recycling, “so ultimately you’re only using your garbage for what is truly garbage,” he said.

Duffield said their statistics show that most households put out their bin biweekly, and some as little as once every two months, something he considers a success since Beaconsfield once generated the second largest amount of garbage per capita on the island of Montreal.

“This notion of choice, individual need and collective pride remains an important element,” he said.

Cities are not only facing rising costs for collections, but they are also under pressure to meet guidelines set by the Communaute metropolitaine de Montreal (CMM), according to the mayor of Vaudreuil-Dorion, Paul Dumoulin.

“We have to go to 170 kg of garbage per citizen by 2030 so that’s why we have to ask the help of people to get us to this point,” he said.

The city has gone down to 26 garbage collections per year and plans to give residents a refund if they take out their bins less than that.

Dumoulin said they are still working out the details of how those refunds will be disbursed, but they want to use positive incentives to reduce waste.

“Everybody is concerned about the environment,” he said. “But they have to do something to help us.”