Montrealers are more than ever exasperated by the waste of all kinds that litters the streets if we trust the reports to 311 which have exploded.
“Montreal is dirty, very dirty,” agrees Karel Ménard, director of the Quebec Common Front for Ecological Waste Management.
He still says he is surprised by the staggering increase in the number of reports to 311 on this subject in the last three years.
In the summer of 2023, the City received 15,724 reports from Montrealers regarding the illegal dumping of waste on public roads, more than 4,000 more than in the summer of 2021.
Ben Pelosse / JdeM
The number of reports concerning the cleaning of sidewalks and streets jumped by more than 15% during the same period (see below).
Lack of civility
Public trash cans that are overflowing, bulky and single-use containers are commonplace on major arteries such as rue Saint-Denis, rue Fullum and rue Sainte-Catherine noted The newspaper while walking the streets of the metropolis.
We even saw empty coffee containers, chip bags and plastic bags along Highway 40 in the west of the island.
Old plastic bottles and other single-use containers accumulate along highways 15 and 40 in the west of the island.
Photo Anouk Lebel
Karel Ménard sees a lack of civic-mindedness, even self-esteem, on the part of Quebecers.
“We live an individualistic lifestyle. We don’t care a little about the actions we take. We are not proud of our part of the country. It’s not just the fault of the homeless, of the people who are passing through,” he emphasizes.
At the start of the week, trash cans and other waste piled up pell-mell on Fullum Street in Montreal.
Photo Anouk Lebel
Internationally, “Quebec stands out, but not in a good way,” he believes.
“It saddens me. “It’s something that gives a bad image of the city to visitors and the people who live there,” adds Richard Shearmur, professor of urban planning at McGill University.
According to him, it is high time that Montreal takes the situation more seriously, like Paris, which devotes more than 600 million euros and more than 2,600 workers to cleaning the streets all year round.
Culture of ease
Karel Ménard, for his part, evokes a “culture of ease” in Quebec compared to certain cities in Europe and Asia.
In Japan, citizens deposit their waste not on the road, but in designated bins further down the street, he illustrates. And in some European cities, people sort their own recyclables at home.
The City of Montreal began its spring cleaning this week.
Photo Anouk Lebel
Faced with the explosion in the number of reports, spokesperson Philippe Sabourin recognizes that the City needs to come clean.
He emphasizes that each request to 311 is subject to personalized monitoring and perhaps geolocated if it is made via the application. “We can use it for places that are unsanitary, for full trash cans and graffiti,” underlines Mr. Sabourin.
Explosion of reports to 311
Illegal dumping of waste
Summer 2021: 11,272
Summer 2022: 14,730
Summer 2023: 15,724
Cleaning of the public domain
Summer 2021: 7390
Summer 2022: 7602
Summer 2023: 8363
The data concerns reports from 1er April to September 30 for each year. The same situation may have been reported in several different requests.
Source: City of Montreal