The City of Montreal is ending its mobile drop-off sites for hazardous waste.
Previously, the city offered a mobile collection service for household hazardous waste. The mobile site was deployed around the city to 18 different locations twice throughout the year.
But it was too expensive, according to a city spokesperson. Cutting the service will save the city $500,000 a year.
“A thorough analysis has shown that mobile hazardous waste collection — a system established at a time when recycling centres did not exist — is now far less efficient and significantly more expensive than the current solutions available,” spokesperson Camille Bégin said on Monday.
Now, Montrealers will have to bring their waste to one of the seven ecocentres across the city. There are also more than 450 waste pickup points at locations such as arenas, hardware stores and other shops — but those are for a variety of materials and vary from location to location.
It’s less expensive to dispose of hazardous waste at an ecocentre than at the mobile drop-off sites. The city says the cost per ton for recycling hazardous waste at the ecocentre is about $400. At the mobile collection site, it’s more like $2,300.
Karel Ménard, the executive director of the Front commun québécois pour une gestion écologique des déchets, an environmental group, said the city’s decision to end the mobile drop-off sites will make it more difficult for Montrealers to properly dispose of their waste.
“There is no way that some 85-year-old person who’s trying to downsize their house is going to one place for their tires, another place to drop off their batteries, another place to drop off their paints,” he said.
“There’s only so much you can ask of people.”