Montreal to standardize once a week garbage pickup in all boroughs

The city of Montreal is planning to eliminate twice a week garbage pickup and move to once a week in all 19 boroughs by 2019.

Currently,ten boroughs have trash collected twice a week, whilenine boroughs have it picked uponce a week.

Ral Mnard, the city's executive committee member responsible for the environment, said Mondayhe wants the same standard across the city.

"Boroughs that currently have two pickups a week of garbagewill see one of those pickups replaced by a compostpickup using brown bins," Mnard said, referring to the bins that are currently used by 100,000 households in various neighbourhoods around the island.

The city will invest in 500,000 new brown bins to be distributed to households starting next year so that every borough has one garbage pickup and one compost pickup each week.

Concerns about smell, rats

Sylvain Ouellet, a councillor for the opposition Projet Montreal, said his party supports the idea, with some reservations.

"In certain neighbourhoods people don't have balconies or garages to store their garbage, so there could be problems with odour and vermin, particularly in the summer" said Oullet.

He suggested the city consider maintaining twice a week garbage collection in some neighbourhoods during the summertime, or adding exceptional pickups during heatwaves.

Mnard said the city will release more details about its plan next month.

Boroughs currently with twice a week pickup:

• Ahuntsic-Cartierville
• Anjou
• Cte-des-Neiges-Notre-Dame-de-Grce
• Plateau-Mont-Royal
• Montreal North
• Outremont
• Rosemont-La-Petite-Patrie
• Ville-Marie
• Villeray-Saint-Michel-Parc-Extension

Boroughs currently with once a week pickup:

• Lachine
• Saint-Lonard
• Southwest
• L'le-Bizard-Sainte-Genevive
• Mercier-Hochelaga-Maisonneuve
• Pierrefonds-Roxboro
• Rivires-des-Prairies-Pointe-aux-Trembles
• Saint-Laurent
• Verdun

Borough currently with once a week pickup in winter, twice a week in summer:

• Lasalle