It was a good news-bad news report for the City of Montreal's goal of reducing waste and promoting recycling and composting.
The 2022 report on residential material waste showed that Montrealers have reduced the amount of garbage winding up in the city's landfills but at the same time, fewer people are composting.
In 2022, the amount of waste per person dropped from 463 kilograms to 441, according to the report, with the amount of organic material going down by two kilograms to 51.
However, the city says the drop in organic waste disposal may be due to fewer people using the brown compost bins than hoped.
Montreal plans to provide brown bins to all buildings with nine dwellings or more by the end of 2025 in hopes of improving this trend.
The amount of recyclable materials also dropped in 2022 from 84 to 79 kilograms per person. Again, the city suggests that the reduction may be related to the economic slowdown and inflation reducing how many non-essential goods Montrealers purchased.
The city has a reduction of waste collection near the top of its list of priorities.
"The only landfill in the Montreal region will have reached its full capacity in capacity in 2027. We have a duty to reduce our waste. Our choice, as a
community, now and for generations to come, must be to reduce all categories of residual waste," said Marie-Andrée Mauger, the Montreal executive committee's front person on the ecological transition.
To encourage residents to use the brown bins more, the city is launching an educational campaign including leaflets, stickers and posters, reminding residents of the regulations as well as giving advice for composting, such as how to avoid odours.
The report says that ecocentres took in three per cent more materials (86,064 tonnes) in 2022.
