Civic Alert: Actively reviewing waste — but mercury is new threat

Few people on a global scale have addressed what that means in their daily lives, but in the developed world, many people are slowly changing some customs.

Eating, for instance; some have become vegetarian or even vegan. Many more eat less fatty meats, and buy more organically grown products. Smoking is yesteryear’s pastime.

People can adapt — they have yet to do so en masse in response to the challenges of climate change.

In tackling the CFC problem, the world has shown that man-made damage can be reversed. The environmental issue that most people — in the industrial world, at least —find easiest to address is garbage.

There is a lot of planning going on behind closed City Hall doors to step-up the city’s services in this area. “Active review” was this week’s buzz words for the efforts. More details later. “Garbage is on the table,” quipped Cllr George Bowser, the Commissioner responsible. “It will stay there ‘til we have a comprehensive plan.”

Mayor’s tip

He has become deeply involved in the issues that come with his Public Works’ portfolio. So has Mayor Karin Marks, who admits to discovering the complexity and fascination of solid waste issues.

She’s normally an upbeat and cheerful person, but this week she was even more ebullient. “I would never have thought it, but it is exciting and stimulating being at these meetings,” she told me.

“It has become fun, because this is an area where each of us — in our own way — has the potential to do something.”

She even produced a mayoral environment tip! The Marks’ kitchen has a small compost collector bin, but the mayor admits that it is sometimes not emptied as frequently as necessary. I am sure she is not alone!

“Consequently, it attracts too many fruit flies and I hate that,” she said. “A friend gave me the solution this week: keep it in the freezer! It works, too — and, because the container is sealed, it doesn’t affect the food stored nearby.”

Less garbage

In both Westmount and Quebec there is good garbage news. For the first time since records were kept in the City, we produced less garbage — throwing out 8,927 tonnes in 2005, but only 8,725 t in 2006.

It can probably be accounted for by door-to-door recycling collections, which increased by 160 t to 2,127 t. Another 52 t was collected from the containers in the Public Works Yard. There was also the introduction of a weekly green waste pick-up.

There are other notable successes. More than 3t of clothes were contributed in the City’s two Household Hazardous Waste (HHW) collections. A lot more went into the bell outside the Arena and the container in the Yard, but they were not weighed.

The e-waste (computers, TV, phones, etc) collection that Westmount pioneered three years ago has been a great success. There is a 23/7 drop-off in the Yard as well as the HHW collections.

The collection last spring was so successful that the truck used by the recycler had to make three loaded trips to the plant with all the techno-waste discarded by Westmounters.

Our pioneering effort has been taken up by Big Montreal, and e-waste is now a feature of all the HHW collections on the island.

While this is one of Westmount’s success stories, all is not well with the collection of hazardous waste itself. Last year, this dropped 12 per cent to 16.35 t compared to 2005.

The biggest hazardous item collected is paint, but there was less last year than previously. Could it be that the boom of do-it-yourself decorating is over? Does the surplus go back to the stores that sold it? Or maybe we’ve already turned in all those rusting cans of toxic glop that used to clutter our basements and garages!

Marina Peter, the city Environment Coordinator, thinks the growing number of residents who use Montreal’s Eco-Centres may be a factor.

The nearest such facilities are on Eadie Street and on Côte-des-Neiges; they are open year-round with convenient business hours. Operated by Big Montreal, they are charged to the Agglom budget and so suburbanites have free usage.

The final HHW collection of the season takes place in the Library parking lot this Saturday, but the itinerant crews will resume touring the island again in the spring.

Province-wide

Across Canada, it is Waste Reduction Week. It is marked by the publication, sponsored by the Quebec government agency responsible, of a rather optimistic survey of improved recycling habits across the province.

The survey, of 10,000 homes in 49 communities, compared last year with two years earlier, and found that the average amount of garbage produced had fallen 13 per cent to 404 kg. The drop was created by increased recycling.

It found that almost half of packaging and printed paper found its way to blue boxes. Plus 74 per cent of wine bottles and 57 per cent of water bottles are recycled.

These are welcome trends and reflect the wide acceptance of the need everywhere for enhanced waste management — except in the Greater Montreal region, which is woefully behind in attempting to meet the provincial objectives for diverting 65 percent of waste from landfills by next year.

However, Westmount’s planning for the 15 steps necessary to meet this diversion goal is receiving City Hall’s attention (and probably filling the Bowser table!)

Scientists’ warning

The Nobel Peace Prize attracted massive attention, but some other recent announcements deserve notice. On October 4, 1,000 Canadian scientists, including many Montrealers, wrote to federal Prime Minister Stephen Harper reiterating the threats to human health of neglected pollution issues.

“Significant scientific evidence is drawing links between toxic chemicals and conditions such as cancer, asthma, autism, learning disabilities, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, birth defects and low birth weights,” they wrote.

“Of particular concern are a host of persistent and bioaccumulative substances often found in consumer products….Increasingly [products] bought and sold on the market contain substances that are potentially harmful.”

The signatories, who include 70 research chairs — some from Montreal’s four universities — single out lead, which was banned from gasoline 15 years ago. It is also regulated in children’s jewelry, but not in widely available costume jewelry, key chain fobs and lapel pins. They want the government to better regulate such substances.

They advocate a major policy change to a precautionary approach, so that the onus is put on industry to show that new products are safe; at present, the government must prove there is harm before taking action.

Consumers can also regulate such things by their knowledgeable purchases. They can also avoid, or limit, the damage done by the way they dispose of such things at the end of their useful life.

Ban mercury

Last fall the Environment Committee of the Healthy City Project called on Council to ban e-waste from garbage collection. There were many safer ways to be rid of it and, a year later, there are even more.

Such e-waste involves many polluting materials, besides being wasteful of resources.

Now the time has come to take seriously a lot of other things that have no business in a landfill — the largest volume coming from kitchen and garden waste which should be composted.

Some researchers want to see all light bulbs excluded from the garbage collection. This includes the traditional incandescent bulb, which contains a minuscule amount of lead.

Uncontrolled mercury is even more serious.

The Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFLs), which are being heavily promoted by Hydro-Quebec as well as manufacturers and some big box retailers, are a new concern.

CFLs dilemma

Standard fluorescent tubes are a serious problem. Compared to them, the new CFLs have minimal mercury content, but in the volume these lamps are now being marketed — and will one day be thrown out — they are a major threat. This presents an environmental dilemma.

Their energy saving is immense. What is missing is a safe collection system to cover the end of their lives.

As the 1,000 scientists observed in their letter to Ottawa, the precautionary approach was missing. The manufacturers have not provided for the end-of-life recovery of their new product.

Like e-waste a year ago, there are some limited local facilities. All fluorescent lamps can be taken for safe disposal to the HHW collection; the last one of the season is on Saturday. After that, they can be taken to one of the Eco-Centers, which are staffed to handle them.

Unfortunately, fluorescents cannot be accepted at the Public Works Yard as they are too fragile and need careful handling.

What to do with the incandescent bulbs? Suggestions would be welcome.

• Community activist Don Wedge can be reached at calert@web.net. His columns are archived at www.westmountexaminer.com, go to Opinion.