Cardboard boxes used to deliver our many online purchases. Plastic bags intended to contain three cookies, lined up on a plastic tray itself wrapped in plastic wrap, all contained in a cardboard box.
Posted at 5:00 a.m.
Building materials, table scraps, old tires.
In Quebec, waste management is reminiscent of a game of Tetris in which the trash is falling on us faster and faster. No matter how hard we try to send each object to the right place, we don’t succeed.
Result: at the bottom, the level rises. Many of our dumps are about to overflow, and “Game Over” will soon be flashing in our faces.
The bypass route consists of loading the contents of our recycling bins onto containers heading for Asia. It was really embarrassing, watching the latest episode ofInvestigationon Radio-Canada, to see our old bags of Québon milk cluttering up vacant lots in India.
It is in this context that our politicians struggle. In Quebec, observers have good words for the Minister of the Environment and the Fight Against Climate Change, Benoit Charette, who shows a real desire to solve the problem. In Montreal, we also sense a sensitivity of the Plante administration.
Citizens also have their role to play, by consuming less and better. They know that.
The big problem is that for now, the results are not there.
Recently, a report from the Bureau d’audiences publiques sur l’environnement (BAPE) commissioned by Minister Benoit Charette himself came to remind us of a very simple truth: managing the waste we produce is good. Slowing down the flow is better.
There is obviously nothing revolutionary about it: the environmental movement has been talking about source reduction for decades. It must, however, lead to a revolution. Because we no longer have a choice.
Quebec had set itself the objective of producing 525 kg of waste per inhabitant in 2023. In 2019, we were very far from the mark, at 724 kg per inhabitant. And observers expect the picture to have deteriorated further during the pandemic.
Minister Benoit Charette has the merit of looking things in the face.
“In terms of the management of its residual materials, we are doing poorly,” he told us.
You can hardly blame him for sitting idly by. The extension of the deposit suffers from some delays, but is nevertheless on track. Another important reform: it will soon be the container producers themselves who will be in charge of the selective collective.
Quebec has also injected 1.2 billion for a strategy on organic matter which aims (finally!) to generalize brown bins. Barely 27% of this waste is currently recycled, far from the objective of 60% which should have been reached… in 2015. A huge delay.
However, there are still holes in the strategy.
The word “prohibit” is still practically absent from the regulations. However, experts are pushing for a ban on materials that are difficult to recycle.
Ecotaxation also remains a huge taboo in Quebec. By limiting collections and making citizens pay for additional collections, the city of Beaconsfield has managed to reduce its garbage by half.
Another project: while citizens feel guilty (not without reason) with everything they send in their various bins, residual materials from industries, businesses and institutions as well as construction waste together represent 54% of all waste in Quebec. , compared to 32% for household waste. Yet we hardly ever talk about it.
Minister Benoît Charette says he has construction waste in his sights. And he says he has other cards up his sleeve, including a strategy on plastics. So much the better. But let’s realize that, for many years, we have seen the ads pass without the results following.
Actual waste reduction, not the number of press releases issued, will be the measure of our collective performance.