” It’s horrible. It’s a lack of civility. We should be concerned about composting,” exclaims Angèle Deblois. Market regular Jean-Talon has just learned that there are no composting facilities in Montreal’s large public markets.
The group Mères au front de Montréal and the Association québécoise Zéro Déchet went to the Jean-Talon market on Sunday morning to inform customers of this situation which they consider “unacceptable”.
“We are citizens who make their compost at home. We try to be zero waste, we eat less meat. It’s shocking when we see that large institutions are not making the effort,” says Nathalie Ainsley of the organization Mères au front and the Association québécoise Zéro Déchet.
Five minutes after arriving at the market, they were asked to leave the establishment. It was in the rain that they continued their awareness-raising action. They invited customers to send letters to elected officials of the city of Montreal and to the Société des Marchés publics de Montréal to ask to accelerate the process of implementing a composting solution.
PHOTO FRANÇOIS ROY, THE PRESS
“It’s incongruous. I didn’t think it was possible,” says Valéria Moro when she arrived at the market. A few years ago, her daughter was doing deschettarianism, or dumpster diving, at the Jean-Talon Market. This technique consists of searching trash cans for food that can still be consumed to avoid food waste. “But I thought it was settled now. I hope that measures will be put in place. »
340 tonnes of organic matter
The Jean-Talon market itself promoted compost in 2008 by giving workshops and bags of compost, recalls Nathalie Ainsley. She says she is shocked that there is no composting facility, 16 years later.
Businesses at the Jean-Talon Market generate around 500 tonnes of waste per year, according to estimates from the Société des marchés publics de Montréal. Of this number, approximately 340 tonnes are organic materials.
When buried, organic matter produces methane which pollutes soil and water, and contributes to overflowing landfill sites. Composting rather allows us to recycle the material to enrich the soil, explains M.me Ainsley.
The Press already reported the absence of composting facilities in November. The administration of the Jean-Talon Market had also removed one of the two compost bins that the market Crêperie had itself installed for the business.
PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
The owner of the Crêperie du Marché fought in November for the Jean-Talon Market to have composting facilities.
Less recovery than expected
The market’s residual materials management areas include a cold room dedicated to the recovery of unsold fruits and vegetables. This initiative, launched in the summer of 2017 under the name “The engaged harvest” by the La Petite-Patrie Community Resource and Action Center (CRACPP), was supposed to save 200 tonnes of food every year.
“We are for this initiative, even before sending it to composting. But we know that the program is not systematic, there are not that many merchants who participate in it,” laments Mme Ainsley.
From 2017 to 2022, an average of 33 tonnes of fruits and vegetables per year were processed and redistributed to citizens in difficulty.
With Charles-Éric Blais-Poulin, The Press