MONTREAL -- A compost heap in Montreal is about to be displaced or disappear in order to make room for a city storage lot.
The city of Montreal currently stores equipment – gravel, road signs, and machinery -- on Eadie St., but that spot needs to be used for the new Turcot Interchange.
The city’s planned spacing shuffle will see it move its equipment to a space on Notre Dame St. West –- an area that is currently used to transform waste material collected by Compost Montreal into agricultural compost. This is then returned to customers for gardening.
The private company collects food scraps from Montreal residents and restaurateurs who don't want their waste to end up as landfill. Over a thousand Montrealers currently use the service, including hospitals, schools and restaurants.
It collects up to four hundred tonnes of food waste every year.
Compost Montreal asked if it could continue to use the space, sharing it with the city -- but the request was refused.
The company has gone public with its demand for help, and has a petition circulating with over 1500 signatures.
They say that getting a permit to use another space has proved impossible, so they're asking for an extension in order to have time to find another option.
"To analyze all the options at the borough level at the city level, to continue to have infrastructure to support these residents businesses and institutions who have taken the initiative to reduce their ecological impact ," said Stephen McLeod, Compost Montreal founder.
The borough will be meeting with Montreal Compost on May 29 in order to attempt to come up with a solution.
