Montreal ends biannual hazardous waste collection, drawing concerns

MOntreal has ended its bi-annual mobile collection of household hazardous waste, directing residents to eco-centres instead.

Montreal has ended its biannual mobile collection of household hazardous waste, but the move is raising concerns that this sort of waste could end up in a landfill.

In a statement, the City of Montreal claimed the move came down to cost, stating, “rigorous analysis showed mobile collections of household hazardous waste, created at a time when eco-centres did not exist, were much less efficient and significantly more expensive than the current solutions offered.

”Residents are now being directed to ecocentres and 450 drop-off points across the island, including hardware stores, big-box stores, and electric waste drop boxes.

• Where and how to safely dispose of hazardous waste

The decision was made in January and came as a surprise to Beaconsfield Mayor Martin St-Jean.

“The two mobile collections that the agglomeration had been providing for as far back as we can remember had already been included in our calendar of events distributed to our residents,” he said, adding that it’s not a good solution for people who live far away from an ecocentre or don’t have access to a vehicle.

“We’re in a remote area on the island. We’re far from the nearest ecocentre,” he said, naming the St-Laurent location as the closest for residents, adding it’s “about 23, 25 kilometres away, depending on where you reside on our territory.”

Ending the mobile collections will save the agglomeration more than $500,000.

St-Jean said he and some other regional mayors are hoping this service can be restored, saying it’s worth it long term.

“$500,000 in a $7.4-billion budget is a drop in the bucket and a fundamental question that we need to ask ourselves as a society, as members of the [agglomeration], is how important is the environment?” he said.