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City announces costly composting initiative for Montreal homes

WATCH ABOVE: Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre has unveiled an ambitious program to provide Montreal homes with a curb side composting service. Global’s Tim Sargeants reports.

MONTREAL – Mayor Denis Coderre has unveiled an ambitious program to provide two-thirds of all Montreal homes with a curb side composting service by 2019.

Just under 540,000 homes, including apartment buildings with eight units or less, will have access to the composting program.

READ MORE: Municipalities struggling to get residents to compost

Right now, only 18 per cent of homes in the city have proper access to the service, a big difference from other cities and towns on the island.

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But offering this service in Montreal doesn’t come cheap.

WATCH: Montreal composting

Coderre anticipates it will cost $260 million to build four new composting centres so the city doesn’t have to send its composting to off-island centres in Joliette and Lachute.

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READ MORE: New composting site to be built in Rivieres-des-Prairies

Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre wants to improve composting options on the island, Tuesday, August 11, 2015. Tim Sargeant/Global News

In addition to the new centres, it will cost $12 million to role out the new bins for residents and operating costs will be close to $165 million a year.

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READ MORE: Montreal’s compost site at risk of shutting down

But Coderre insisted not all of the costs will come from city tax payers, saying federal and provincial grants will offset some of the expenses.

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