Food counters | No more single-use plastic at UdeM

Exit plastic at the University of Montreal. As of February 6, the higher education institution will remove all single-use containers from its food counters, with the possibility of bringing your own, buying them or renting them through a loan service. Speaking of a real “change of culture”, the management is however betting that its community will follow suit.

“When people had to give up plastic bags in supermarkets, it caused a lot of talk. But in the end, everyone adapted and today, everyone is doing very well, habits have changed. We want it to be the same here, but with all the plastic containers,” said UdeM food services director Pascal Prouteau in an interview with The Press.

According to him, “there is no better place than a university to implement this kind of ecological project”.

“As an institution, we have a duty to set an example in terms of sustainable development. But above all, we are a self-funded service, so yes, we have to make our activities profitable, but we don’t have the same financial objective as in a private company,” explains Mr. Prouteau.

As of February 6, the Chez Valère cafeteria and the five food counters of the university will therefore no longer offer any plastic containers. At least two student cafes have already joined the movement, but Mr. Prouteau aims to bring them all together; there are about 25 on campus.

Three choices

Students will now have three choices: bring their own, buy some at a low cost, or use the rental service of the start-up Cano, which has already done business with UdeM and just over a thousand students for a few years, by offering reusable coffee cups.

Established in Montreal, the Quebec company, already present in twenty schools and fifteen companies, will now lend ten models of reusable containers to students, completely free of charge, from a mobile application.

Note: as the student will not pay anything, it is rather his manager – here the university – who will settle the bill according to use, at the end of the month. “On the app, it’s done in a few seconds, a bit like a BIXI: we borrow them and when we’re finished, we leave them in a collection box to be cleaned on site. All of our containers have a unique, easily traceable QR code,” says Cano founder Marco Gartenhaus.

“Everything is done to make it simple, fast. At UdeM, we already have six collection bins in place. Students will have 14 days to return it, but there will be incentives if they do so within 48 hours,” continues the young man.

“It’s quite a change”

In principle, the University of Montreal will therefore become the first in Quebec to make a “100% zero packaging” shift, says Mr. Gartenhaus, who sees it as a “really bold” gesture that can inspire others. Institutionally, “it’s a bet we’re making”, recognizes the spokesperson for the University, Geneviève O’Meara.

“Yes, it’s quite a change of habit for the community, but we think that in the end, after a few weeks, our 45,000 students and our 10,000 employees will choose their options. They will either download Cano, or bring their own containers, or buy some at food counters,” she says.

Pascal Prouteau goes in the same direction. “In the beginning, there will probably be a bit of frustration, as expected, because people will feel compelled to think outside the box. But in the long term, as there will be no other options, I think it will really explode, ”anticipates the manager.

This does not hide the fact that the Plante administration’s regulation aimed at banning single-use plastics in metropolitan France from 1^er March 2023 has “accelerated the steps” of UdeM in this direction. “When we saw this law coming, we said to ourselves that we had to get ahead of ourselves. It was very ambitious, but at the same time, it’s a positive pressure to find solutions quickly,” he concludes.

Between now and February 6, Cano will hold information booths once or twice a week on the Montreal campus. A communication campaign will also be launched this week.