Garbage cans will only be picked up every two weeks throughout the Mercier-Hochelaga-Maisonneuve district by the end of 2024, the city of Montreal predicts after completing a pilot project.
The Plante administration has judged a pilot project launched a year ago for the spatial separation of waste collection in the districts of Tétreaultville and Maisonneuve-Longue-Pointe to be conclusive.
Therefore, it changed the contract awarded to Derichebourg Canada Environnement in 2020 to collect the garbage in Mercier-Hochelaga-Maisonneuve every two weeks instead of every week as before.
This would make it the second district after Saint-Laurent in 2016 to reduce the frequency of garbage collection.
According to the administration, this decision reduces the amount of household waste going to landfills and encourages proper segregation.
The collection of recyclable materials and contaminated sites is carried out weekly.
A requested summer break
During Tuesday’s municipal council, the opposition proposed a change to maintain a weekly collection from June 1 to September 30, judging that several citizens were unhappy with the summer pilot.
“With the heat, the citizens noticed that it smelled a lot more. There were a lot of problems with bugs, rats and worms,” said Tétreaultville City Councilor Julien Hénault-Ratelle in an interview.
However, the opposition wants the process to continue for the rest of the year.
“We know how important it is to implement this type of project, but it really depends on the way it was implemented, especially in the summer [qui pose problème]. We don’t want it to become an open dump,” said Alba Zuniga Ramos, councilwoman for the district.
The Plante administration has said it’s open to suggestions, but thinks it’s a “false good idea.” “To change habits, the habit must come back and be integrated into everyday life,” responded Pierre Lessard-Blais, mayor of the municipality.
The opposition motion was rejected by elected representatives of Valérie Plante’s party. “We’re going 100 percent, we can’t go two-thirds,” added Marie-Andrée Mauger, Head of Ecological Transition and Environment.
The project is planned to extend to Mercier-Ouest next autumn, to Mercier-Est in spring 2024 and then to Hochelaga-Maisonneuve in autumn 2024.