A new report on waste production released by the MRC Pontiac’s environment committee at the Apr. 16 council of mayors meeting says the county has seen a decrease in total waste produced alongside an increase in recycling over the past four years.

The report, which pulls from waste collection statistics from all 18 municipalities between 2021 and 2024, ranks municipalities according to total waste produced and total recycling collected.

It was assembled by the MRC’s environmental coordinator Nina Digioacchino and added last-minute to the Apr. 16 meeting agenda by Allumette Island mayor Corey Spence.

According to the report, the total amount of waste produced by the MRC is down to 5,181 tonnes in 2024 from 5,813 tonnes in 2021, while the total amount of recycled materials increased from 1,143 tonnes in 2021 to 1,431 tonnes in 2024.

Digioacchino said in an interview that in general these changes can be attributed to better awareness among citizens of what should be recycled versus what should be thrown in the garbage.

“The more you’re recycling, the less you’re producing garbage,” she said. “These are normal trends that one would expect in waste management. People are becoming more aware of what they’re throwing out, more aware of what’s recyclable.”

The report ranks municipalities in several categories, including total waste produced, garbage and recycling per capita, as well as recovery rate, a metric which shows the weight of a municipality’s total waste collected that is recyclable material.

The three municipalities that produce the least waste per capita are Thorne (105 kg/year), Sheenboro (141 kg/year) and Alleyn and Cawood (181 kg/year).

Sheenboro mayor Doris Ranger, who suggested the municipality implement a clear-garbage bag system a few years ago, said their success is due to a few different efforts.

“We really pushed for our residents to compost, we cut back on large-ticket items, and you have to bring your garbage in a clear garbage bag,” she said, adding that the clear garbage bags discourage people from throwing unrinsed recyclables in the garbage.

Ranger added that the addition of two dedicated days every year for large garbage items has helped reduce the total weight of the municipality’s garbage.

The Municipality of Shawville was found to be one of the MRC’s top per-capita producers of waste (433 kg/year), second only to Bryson (462 kg/year). Mayor Bill McCleary said he thinks this could be due to a few factors.

“We pick up people’s garbage. If we pick it up at your door, you have no incentive to worry about it, so you’re going to put everything you produce at the end of the road.”

McCleary said despite programs put in place by the MRC to increase awareness about which materials can be recycled, people still don’t seem to understand which materials go where.

“There’s still the old thinking that it doesn’t actually go anywhere other than from one dumpster into a hole,” he said. “Or they just don’t care.”

Digioacchino said she thinks a lack of blue bins in Shawville could be another cause of the municipality’s high total waste number. The municipality recently introduced black garbage collection bins, and is expected to roll out blue bins later this fall.

New provincial recycling program

Digioacchino said she has been working with municipalities across the county to educate them about the province’s new producer responsibility recycling program, which came into effect Jan. 1.

This program, run by non-profit Éco Entreprises Québec (EEQ), covers municipal costs associated with recycling collection, and has changed the items that can go in the blue bin.

“We’re not so much looking for the numbers on the plastics anymore. We’re looking to see, is it a container, packaging or printed material? If it’s one of those three [ . . . ] it goes in your blue bin,” she said as an example.

She said the program run by EEQ, which is now responsible for the collection, sorting and sale of recyclable materials, is intended to make it easier for the public to recycle while discouraging companies from producing problematic materials.

“If you produce packaging, printed material, or a container in Quebec, you are now paying a fee as the producer,” she said, adding that since that program is funded by EEQ it makes sense for municipalities to recycle as much as possible in order to save costs.

“The more you recycle, the less it’s going to cost your municipality,” she said.

According to the MRC’s report, the three most successful municipalities at recycling per capita were Fort Coulonge (174 kg/year), Bryson (154 kg/year) and Portage-du-Fort (127 kg/year), while the worst were Bristol (35 kg/year), Thorne (36 kg/year) and Clarendon (45 kg/year), numbers that were collected before the EEQ program came into effect.

Digioacchino said she hopes the new EEQ program will make recycling easier for consumers, as well as stand as an incentive to municipalities to educate their residents on which materials should be recycled.

Going forward, she said she will further analyze the data from the report. “In my mandate is to get a better definition on our numbers, what’s going on and why certain municipalities are better than others, and having everybody on the same playing field.”