After years of delays, Montreal has the green light for city-wide composting

MONTREAL— It's taken years of public consultations, but the city now has the green light to transform the old Goodyear plant on Henri-Bourassa Blvd. into a composting centre.

“Is it perfect? Probably not. But it’s the best site of many and we think it meets the criteria,” said St-Laurent Borough Mayor Alan Desousa.

The borough mayor calls it the last piece of a complicated puzzle, years in the making: city-wide composting for Montreal.

After years of public consultations, the city has chosen four sites to treat organic waste and it wants to go ahead with construction next year.

The city already picks-up leaves, Christmas trees and yard waste, about 10 per cent of all compost. Its goal is to treat about 60 per cent within the next few years.

The choice is being greeted with excitement, except for with some residents in St-Michel. They're firmly against the city's plan to locate one of the composting centres next to an area that's being developed as a park.

“Some of them are discussing going to court and going to demonstrate their refusal of the project in the street,” said Denis Sirois, from the Economic Development Centre Nord.

Mayor Applebaum says the public consultation office has heard their concern and made its decision.

“What we'll do is ask them to is participate with us, work with us. We will show them the technology, so that when the site opens, it will not have the impact that they think it will have on the community,” said Applebaum.

The city wants to move as quickly as possible from now on, with three out of four centres up and running, along with door-to-door compost collection, by 2016.