Montreal is finally bringing composting to apartment complexes.
Tenants who live at highrise buildings in select boroughs will now be able to start composting. The city has announced a pilot project involving four boroughs and more than 4,000 apartment units in each of them.
St. Laurent, Montreal North, South West and Ville Marie are all involved in the project.
It’s the last step in deploying domestic composting across the city, after the city finally introduced it to everyone else last December. But city officials say it hasn’t been easy to develop a strategy to successful bring composting to apartment buildings that have nine units or more.
“That’s why we don’t make the deployment in Montreal at the same, because like we said, it’s not a one-size-fits-all and for sure some owners will say it’s too complicated,” Parenteau told reporters.
Ville St. Laurentt, one of the key players in the project, has been working with contractors for 10 years now to incorporate composting in the design of new buildings.
“We have about 2,700 units that are ready to go,”
Pointe-Claire began composting in 2007 and added highrise buildings in 2017. A leader in recycling, the city is also proud of its composting efforts.
Pointe-Claire Mayor John Belvedere notes that reaching past 60 per cent will only succeed with more participation from tenants in the bigger apartment buildings.
“The city of Montreal, the government’s objectives are 60 per cent and we are at 58 per cent, so we are always on top of our game. In the nine units or more right now we have 11 buildings participating out of 50,” Belvedere told Global News.
“So it’s getting there and it’s going to grow more and more because we are doing more education this summer.”
The goal is to see 100 per cent of the island’s organic waste composted by 2025. Montreal aims to be a zero-waste city by 2030.