A pair of students living near the downtown McGill campus for the last three years have vowed to fight a $177 ticket for mistakenly using a white recycling bag rather than a blue one.

McGill students David Cameron and Eric Aboutboul, who describe themselves as avid recyclers, were slapped with the fine last month after receiving what they considered a difficult-to-decipher note from the borough last spring.

“I’m very positive towards thinking that Montreal and the borough is taking care of recycling and garbage but I’m surprised at the amount of the ticket," said Cameron, who feels that the amount of the fine is excessive. 

"It changes from being a helpful warning into something that’s going to start motivating people to recycle less and just throw things in the garbage," said Cameron.

His roommate said that their lack of awareness of the recycling bag colour coding protocol was their only recycling misdeed.

"Every Tuesday morning I make sure that the recycling has all the proper contents and I put a lot of effort doing so. Getting a ticket for $177 when I’m trying to do the right thing is very discouraging,” said Aboutboul.

Area city councillor Alex Norris defended the fines in an interview with CTV Montreal Friday.  "If garbage ends up in a recycling truck, that can contaminate all of the recycling and make that whole effort useless," he said.