MONTREAL – Making residential waste reduction a priority, the city of Montreal is to hold a public consultation Tuesday night in the Saint-Laurent borough on a proposal to build a sprawling composting facility in the middle of an industrial park.
The city had initially considered locating the closed composting centre in Dorval, but the Aéroports de Montréal raised concerns last year that the facility might attract birds which could then get sucked into the engines of planes taking off and landing at nearby Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport.
Out-of-site?
The city then decided to re-locate the composting centre – one of four that it hopes to set up across Montreal Island – on a lot north of Henri-Bourassa Blvd., between Valiquette St. and Thimens Blvd.
The composting centre is part of a “residual materials master plan” to slash by 60 per cent the amount of garbage that’s dumped at off-island landfills by 2020.
Alan DeSousa, Saint-Laurent borough mayor and vice-chairman of Montreal’s executive committee who is also in charge of sustainable development, said the new composting site is ideal because it’s located far from residential neighbourhoods.
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“To serve the western part of the island, the challenge was to find a site that respects the different distance requirements from residences that the (provincial) environment ministry has asked us to respect,” DeSousa said in an interview.
“Our choice was a site in the industrial sector, close to Highway 13. The site in question is large enough to accommodate the facility that we’re hoping to build, and we’ve got a preliminary green light from the environment ministry.”
What a compost centre looks like
The composting centre would stand at a maximum height of 14 metres, and would have the capacity to process each year up to 50,000 tonnes of organic waste – essentially kitchen scraps collected from people’s homes.
There is no firm deadline for when the city plans to open the composting centre.
The city has secured more than $130 million in provincial grants to open the four composting centres.
The others will be located in Montreal East, Saint-Michel borough and LaSalle.
DeSousa said that it’s likely the city will have to invest additional funds in the composting centres, but he declined to make public any figures yet.
Official impact studies
The Office de consultation publique de Montréal has made available two studies that have evaluated the impact of the Saint-Laurent composting centre on noise and odours.
The noise study assessed the impact as “imperceptible,” given the industrial location.
The odour study concluded that the impact would be “comparatively weak,” since the composting building would use negative pressure (keeping smells inside the building) as well as an advanced air filtration system.
Once the centres open, the city will use the compost for parks and sell huge quantities to outlying farms. The compost will also be available to city residents, DeSousa said.
The city will hold another public consultation on the project on Oct. 30, during which residents will be able to express their opinions and make recommendations.
Tuesday’s consultation will be held at 7 p.m. at the Centre des loisirs Saint-Laurent at 1375 Grenet St.
Read more about the project at the Office de consultation’s website: http://www.ocpm.qc.ca.
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