Kudos to Côte St. Luc

One of the first municipalities in Quebec to ban pesticides, Côte St. Luc became the only city on the island of Montreal and one of the only cities in Quebec with a three-stream collection program this past September. Part one of the three-phase plan was to launch an organic waste collection pilot project, which almost five months later, everyone seems to agree, is a resounding success.

The project is easy enough to implement. CSL purchased the brown bins and hired an environmental waste technician. The compostable bags were originally distributed free of charge as samples by various companies. The next step was changing their collection schedule. CSL collects garbage twice a week and recycling once a week. The city decided to substitute one of two garbage days with an organic waste collection day, therefore still maintaining three collections every week – only now each one was specialized. The total cost was estimated to be about $25 per household. The cost of treatment is $59 per tonne, slightly more than the cost of dumping in landfill ($55 per tonne), but the overall benefits involved in introducing curb-side collection of organic waste certainly outweigh that additional cost.

It's estimated that approximately 40% of total residual waste is organic (approximately 3.47 tonnes each week in CSL's case). Think about that for a moment! Almost half of our garbage could be turned into useful landfill within a year and we're choosing not to do anything about it. It's absurd that at this day and age most cities are choosing not to be more pro-active about these matters. It just takes a willingness to do things differently and the ability to see solutions where others see obstacles.

With an 85% participation rate, CSL managed to divert 54.53% of their organic waste away from landfills. That's huge! Take the time to think of the organic waste most of us are currently throwing into the trash; fruits and vegetables, breads and grains, meat, fish, egg shells, coffee grounds, filters, soiled paper towels, houseplants, pet waste, grass clippings…. All of this could –and should- be disposed of in environmentally conscious way and CSL is doing just that.

Given the success of the pilot project, it comes as no surprise that CSL is expanding its organic waste collection to all single-family homes in 2008. CSL should be commended for proving that something like this can be fairly easy to implement and much less costly than the naysayers would have you believe.

The question is: What are other municipalities waiting for to get on board?