Business recycling could be on the way

While residents can sort the recyclable materials in their blue box and leave it on the curb, the same service is not provided for businesses. They must arrange to have their reusable materials dealt with on their own initiative, though there is no obligation to do so.

“I live in Westmount and, of course, we have residential recycling, we’ve had it for years, and I certainly think it’s a responsible idea to have commercial recycling as well,” said Gerard Fellerath, owner of Folklore 1 on Sherbrooke street.

“When you think about it, the commercial businesses produce a lot of materials going into landfills, so it sort of seems logical that it should be going into recycling rather than landfills,” said Fellerath.

Fellerath says that while his store doesn’t produce much reusable materials, which he finds creative ways to recycle, the same cannot be said for many other stores along Sherbrooke Street.

At Hogg Hardware, owners Al and George Hogg pay for Kreuger to come and pick up the cardboard packaging which many of their products come in. Each pickup costs $16 and they use the service up to three times per month.

Other materials, such as cans and plastics, are sometimes taken home by their employees to place in their residential blue bins. “They volunteer to do that,” said George Hogg. “They just feel bad about it.”

The Hoggs would like to see a Westmount recycling service for businesses, but fear that it would add to their already high taxes.

“We don’t need another tax increase to take care of this,” said George Hogg. We figure that they’ve probably got enough money to take care of it on their own but they’ll throw this ball back in our court and say, ‘If we’re going to do it it’s going to cost X and we’re going to have to pass that cost on.”

The CCM estimated that in 2001, the commercial establishments on all it’s territories, which includes Westmount, produced about 722,900 tones of trash, only 2 per cent of which was recycled. They are estimating that the residual total for 2008 will be up to 743,000 tones, of which they hope 460,000 could be recycled.

Westmount Director General Bruce St. Louis said he knows of the CCM targets but is not aware of any plan to tackle the issue of recycling for businesses on an island-wide scope.

“There are a couple of communities that have looked at pilot projects for introducing commercial recycling,” said St. Louis. “But at this point, unless you get funding for a pilot project, there is no global funding that I’m aware of for introducing commercial recycling at a city level.”

Despite the question of funding, St. Louis says a Westmount standing committee is looking into the issue. There are other issues that must be studied along side funding.

According to City Councillor Patrick Martin, who is handling the environment portfolio in John de Castell’s absence, the issues of accessibility and visibility must be addressed.

“The logistics of it is one thing,” said Martin. “I’m sure the citizens would not be too happy to see piles of recycling material out on Sherbrooke Street.”

It would also need to be determined how to move recycling trucks effectively through the tight areas around Sherbrooke streets and Greene Avenue, where many of the local businesses are based.

Although there has been some confusion among businesses about it, Westmount’s recycling coordinator, Marina Peter, said that businesses are welcome to use the bins at the public works yard.

Peter said that while some of the large businesses, like Metro and the SAQ have private contractors take their materials away, other businesses with more manageable quantities of recyclable waste can bring them by the yard.

“They can bring any type of material: cardboard, paper as well as glass metal and plastic,” said Peter. “It’s the same materials that would be accepted in the blue box.”

Both Martin and St. Louis said that cost will be a factor in deciding how to proceed, but the issue’s standing committee has not made any recommendation yet.