Two years ago, the Minister of the Environment and the Fight Against Climate Change, Benoit Charette, announced the extension of the deposit to beverage containers from 100 milliliters to 2 liters, whether plastic, glass or aluminium, which notably includes the billions of water bottles and wine bottles that at best end up in recycling bins or even in the trash. Around the same time, the Minister presented the 2019-2024 Action Plan for the Quebec Residual Materials Management Policy.
That was great news at the time. The extension of the deposit is a courageous measure which was strongly opposed by trade associations. For its part, the action plan laid the foundations for a reform of the selective collection system by subjecting companies that sell packaged products to the principle of “extended producer responsibility”. Producers will look after their products and their packaging throughout the entire life cycle. They will have to gradually increase the recycling rate for these materials, even if it means incurring penalties if they do not reach the prescribed targets.
On Tuesday, the Bureau d’audiences publiques sur l’environnement (BAPE) unveiled its voluminous report (more than 600 pages) on the management of “ultimate residues”, materials that are neither recycled nor composted and which end up in the sites of burial. On Wednesday, Benoit Charette unveiled his draft regulations on the modernization of the deposit and on the new collective collection system. Note the spirit of transparency that animated the Minister’s approach, since the BAPE report, which he himself commissioned, takes an uncompromising look at the state of residual materials management in Québec.
From the outset, the Minister announced the postponement of six months of the entry into force of the new instruction. Instead of being in place in the fall of 2022, it will only be in place in the spring of 2023. This is a justified postponement: the activities of many of the retailers concerned have been severely disrupted by the pandemic, and the new deposit presents organizational challenges for them. It should be noted that two years ago, the government envisaged the installation of 400 return points, but there will instead be 1,500 throughout Quebec, which should contribute to the effectiveness of the measure.
In the action plan, the government had set a target of increasing to 75% the rate of recyclable materials that are actually recycled. As noted by the BAPE, we are far from this objective since the rate is only 52% for recyclable materials of household origin. For organic matter, which is mainly compost, we note a slight increase, from 2% to 27%, which is well below the 60% target set for 2015 in the previous action plan. The BAPE notes that Quebecers are sending even more garbage to the dump than before, that is 724 kilos per inhabitant, whereas the objective established barely two years ago was 523 kilos per inhabitant.
If the minister asked the BAPE to examine the management of “eliminated” materials, that is to say essentially those materials that pile up in landfills, it is because the CAQ government was assailed by requests aimed at the creation of new dumps or the expansion of existing sites. The projections of the BAPE in this regard are worrying. If we continue to fill the sites at the current rate, 9 of the 38 “engineered landfills”, or LETs, to use the specialized jargon, would be filled by 2030, and 13 others would be filled between 2030 and 2041. Of course, new projects and expansions often arouse resistance movements, social accessibility not being at the rendezvous.
Both the new instructions and the accountability of the companies that produce these materials that must be disposed of should help to delay these deadlines. But there is every reason to fear that this will not be enough to reverse the trend.
So it’s only one step. Source reduction strategies must be developed. Only 40% of citizens have access to the brown bin; this composting service must be offered to everyone. The BAPE recommends that municipalities, in order to improve recycling, carry out separate collection — paper and cardboard, glass, metal and plastic. This is what is done in Europe to enhance the quality of materials to be recycled. Anemic, the collection of electronic devices must be considerably perfected. All of this will take time, but the Legault government cannot stop there.