The city of Montreal's newly-appointed person in charge of sustainable development says he's going to tackle many areas to try to make Montreal a more environmentally-friendly city.
Sidney Ribaux, the former head and co-founder of non-profit environmental group Equiterre, said it will now be his job to mobilize every employee and department in the city and its two million citizens to work together for greener practices.
Ribaux said he will be pushing for provincial changes as well.
“Often there are things that are much more efficient if we do it provincially. One simple example is refundable containers, refundable bottles. This system we have where you bring back your bottle and get 5 cents for aluminum cans has been in place for 40 years. We need to modernize it and extend it to other containers and make sure that all the plastic bottles for example – they need to have a refund system as well, so we get more of them into the recycling system,” he said.
Ribaux was named to the position last week. His hiring coincides with the city’s announcement it will be banning single-use plastic by 2020.
Click on the video above to watch the interview with Sidney Ribaux.
