Waste management is a key competence of municipalities, both the collection and the treatment, and is important for hygiene, health, comfort and the environment. The consumer society leads us to consume more and more goods and produce more and more wastes. Sustainable waste management goes with recycling. It goes also with a reduction of the amount of waste towards zero waste. Several governments since a few years tends to use organic waste as an opportunity to reduce relatively easily their amount of non-recycled waste.

In their article about ‘phosphorus flows through Montreal’s food and waste systems’, Jullian L. Treadwell et al. remind that in 2010, the provincial government of Quebec ‘tabled the Quebec Materials Management Policy which requires municipalities to divert 60% of their organic waste and biosolids form landfills by 2015, with 100% of their organic waste diverted by 2020’ (Treadwell, Clark and Bennett, 2018) .

Montreal implemented policies to reach this goals since 2010 and is creating the new Plan directeur de gestion des matières résiduelles de l’agglomération de Montréal 2020-2025. This document indicates that the rate of valorisation of the residual waste is of 47% in the agglomeration of Montreal. The goal of this new plan is to reach zero waste in 2030 through reduction at the source, diversion of organic matter form landfill and stakeholders mobilisation. An article of CBC news considers that to reach this goal ‘would require each Montrealer to reduce the amount of waste they produce by about 10 kilograms per year’. This article highlights the main points of the plan which primarily focuses on organic waste. Food wastes are a main part of organic wastes. Montreal wants to prevent grocery stores and collective catering to throw away edible food for the benefit of those in need, and to compost most of organic wastes, including those of households. Concerning households, Montreal proposes already home composting and curbside compost pickup for building with more than 9 units but the city wants to continue its efforts and go further with this new plan.

The CBC article indicates that ‘the city will also run pilot projects where garbage pickup is reduced, encouraging people to use their compost bins’. While these new measures could reduce the number of garbage pickup with home composting, a new type of bin for blocks of flats tends to increase the number of garbage pickup. Garbage pickup is also an environmental issue for waste management because of the pollution generated by waste trucks. The environmental argument is often used as justification to space the garbage pickups. However, we should be cautious that this choice is not more motivated by economic reasons which may lead to a decline in service and a lengthening of rounds for garbage collectors.

The environmental interest in diverting waste from landfill is in saving resources and better control of pollutants linked to these wastes. Jillian L. Treadwell et al. use in their study the analysis of phosphorus (P) flows to highlights the benefits of organic waste and wastewater recycling. They found that ‘while increased P recycling has potential benefits including reduced dependence on mined mineral fertilizers and reduced mobilisation to waterways, there are additional cascading effects that come from P recycling, including reduced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, improved soil health, and sustainable waste management’ (Treadwell, Clark and Bennett, 2018).One of main use of recycled organic waste is as a fertilizer to produce new organic matter which will become food. Geneviève S. Metson and Elena M. Bennett suggest that urban agriculture in Montreal should be a good client for recycled organic waste and thus could increase P recycling (Metson and Bennett, 2020).

Recycling is sometimes presented as not that ecological. Recycling processes often use lots of energy, transport and new materials to produce new objects with recyclable materials. While it is mitigating the environmental impact of overconsumption and overpacking, recycling tends to justify the pursuit of this system. Recycling of organic waste is not falling into the same traps. Once an ambitious policy to reduce food waste is implemented organic wastes seem to be inevitable, even with a way of life that requires few resources, and food is vital for us. Thus, organic waste recycling for the benefit of food production could be seen as the culmination of waste reduction and recycling, even if it is one of the oldest and most simple.

References

CBC news (2019). How the City of Montreal plans to go ‘zero waste’. [online] Available at: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/montreal-zero-waste-grocery-compost-textile-recycling-1.5325319 [Accessed 27 Feb. 2020].

Metson, G. and Bennett, E. (2020). Facilitators & barriers to organic waste and phosphorus re-use in Montreal. [online] Available at: https://www.elementascience.org/articles/10.12952/journal.elementa.000070/ [Accessed 27 Feb. 2020].

Thesaurus.gouv.qc.ca. (2020). Fiche du terme : Matiére résiduelle – Thésaurus de l’activité gouvernementale. [online] Available at: http://www.thesaurus.gouv.qc.ca/tag/terme.do?id=7823 [Accessed 27 Feb. 2020].

Treadwell, J., Clark, O. and Bennett, E. (2018). Dynamic simulation of phosphorus flows through Montreal’s food and waste systems. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 131, pp.122-133.

Ville de Montréal (2019). Plan directeur de gestion des matières résiduellesde l’agglomération de Montréal 2020-2025, Plan d’action – Version préparée en vue des consultations publiques. [online] Available at: http://ville.montreal.qc.ca/pls/portal/docs/PAGE/ENVIRO_FR/MEDIA/DOCUMENTS/PDGMR_PLANACTION_VF.PDF [Accessed 27 Feb. 2020].

Ville de Montréal (2019). Plan directeur de gestion des matières résiduellesde l’agglomération de Montréal 2020-2025, Stratégie – Version préparée en vue des consultations publiques. [online] Available at: http://ville.montreal.qc.ca/pls/portal/docs/PAGE/ENVIRO_FR/MEDIA/DOCUMENTS/PDGMR_STRATEGIE_VF.PDF [Accessed 27 Feb. 2020].

Ville.montreal.qc.ca. (2020). Ville de Montréal – Environment – Food waste. [online] Available at: http://ville.montreal.qc.ca/portal/page?_pageid=7418,142596054&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL [Accessed 27 Feb. 2020].