Selective collection in Quebec City: CORPIQ expresses its concerns

The Communauté métropolitaine de Québec (CMQ) hopes to increase the recovery of recyclable materials in multiresidential buildings and also considers introducing collection of organic materials. As CORPIQ explained during the public hearings on the residual materials management plan 2016 – 2021 held last week, landlords are concerned by the proposed measures.

Landlords are already in favor of selective collection and do it at home, but managing such a selection at their tenants' is a completely different thing. CORPIQ fears that by setting quite high recovery targets (70% for recyclable materials and 62% for organic ones), CMQ would eventually adopt a coercive regulation. However, landlords do not wish to play policeman with tenants not complying with the bin content standards or with the time to take out trash.

In addition, selective collection raises questions about bin storage, health as well as financial issues. Indeed, CMQ plans to build very expensive infrastructures to process organic materials in a plant. As tax bills are already high, landlords do not want to transfer even higher costs to their tenants.