Residents in several Pontiac municipalities are taking a crack at new composting practices this summer, thanks to a handful of initiatives being implemented by their towns’ leadership.

From curbside compost collection in Alleyn and Cawood to do-it-yourself backyard composting in Portage du Fort and Litchfield, these municipalities are rolling out new strategies for processing organic waste, all with the goal of cutting back the amount they send to landfill, and they’re asking their residents to get on board.

The province’s recycling organization, Recyc-Québec, estimates about 40 per cent of household waste is compostable material. This costs both the environment and taxpayers, as municipalities have to pay for every tonne of trash they ship to landfill, and this cost gets downloaded to residents.

A new recycling system implemented by the province in January will see non-profit organization Éco Entreprises Québec (EEQ) reimburse all municipalities for the cost of recycling collection, money that will be paid to EEQ by the companies that produce the plastic materials in the first place.

Many municipalities across the MRC Pontiac have seen recycling rates increase after introducing various practices to encourage separation of recyclables from garbage in recent years. In 2024, the first year Alleyn and Cawood was doing curbside collection of recycling, the municipality saw its recycling tonnage rise to 26.75 tonnes from 11.5 tonnes the year prior.

But getting residents to separate food waste from garbage will be another challenge.

Alleyn and Cawood’s approach – curbside compost collection – began in June.

The municipality is now asking all residents to dispose of their organic food waste in brown bins that are to be rolled out to the end of their driveway every week for collection.

“The mission and objective of the program is to reduce the tonnage of residual material going to the landfill and increase recycling and composting rates, as well as support climate change mitigation efforts,” said the municipality’s director general Isabelle Cardinal at a recent public information session hosted to update residents on new waste practices.

Alleyn and Cawood is the first municipality in the MRC Pontiac to do curbside pick-up of all three types of waste, a project on which it has been working since 2023.

The town’s garbage truck now collects garbage and recycling at the end of every resident’s laneway on a biweekly basis, while compost is collected every week and trucked to the compost processing facility in Kazabazua. From November through April, compost collection will also be biweekly.

Cardinal said she understands this is a shift for residents, and that for many it will mean walking the bin down to the end of their laneway, but that she believes this shift is necessary.

“I am one of those ratepayers. I live on a private road, I need to haul my garbage, and it was an adjustment,” Cardinal admitted. “But it is what it is. I think each of us has to do our own little task in order to bring this program together.”

She said if the municipality can reduce the amount of garbage being sent to landfill, this cost-saver will eventually show up on residents’ tax bills, once the up-front costs of launching a door-to-door collection system are paid off.

“By removing recycling and composting from household waste, we’re saving about $200/tonne in costs of shipping the garbage,” Cardinal said.

MRC Pontiac environmental coordinator Nina Digioacchino, who was in attendance at Alleyn and Cawood’s June 28 information session to help attendees understand the province’s new recycling rules, said other municipalities should turn to Alleyn and Cawood as a leader in waste management practices.

“If it’s possible here, it’s possible in any of our municipalities,” she said. Since joining the MRC just over a year ago, Digioacchino has been working to modernize waste management practices across the territory, with the goal of reducing the amount of waste being sent to landfill.

Portage du Fort, Litchfield launch backyard composting

Last week, Portage du Fort mayor Lynne Cameron and director general Lisa Dagenais delivered a backyard composting bin to every resident who would take one.

“Here, anyone that composts wants to keep it. So really, that puts door-to-door pick-up off the table,” Cameron said.

“We’ve had a couple that don’t want them, mostly seniors that just aren’t able to get out and do it.”

Unlike curbside compost collection bins, which can take just about any kind of organic waste, backyard composters cannot take dairy products, sauces, ashes, pet waste, meat, fat or bones.

Each composting unit comes with instructions for best practices to ensure the waste is properly broken down. Steps include keeping pieces of organic matter fairly small, so they will be quicker to break down; dumping the food waste into the outdoor bin and giving it a good stir; and then covering the mound with a layer of dried leaves or other yard waste before putting the bin’s lid back on.

The municipality ordered 140 of these bins, at the cost of $6,956.60 before tax, which will be refunded by Recyc-Québec’s Aide au compostage domestique et communautaire program.

The Municipality of Litchfield also began offering backyard composters this summer.

“Backyard composting can be better suited in rural areas but can also serve as an added initiative even with curbside composting,” Digioacchino said in an email.

“[The MRC] is rolling out some door-to-door composting pickups as of January 2026. Other municipalities can join in and/or continue to promote backyard composting in the meantime.”

Digioacchino said the MRC’s goal is to eventually declare competency on waste management as a whole.

“This means the MRC would decide what’s happening, so then it would not be up to the municipality to say, ‘No we’re not going to offer door-to-door service [ . . . ] because we think that it’s going to be too expensive.’ It would be up to the MRC to say, ‘We’re rolling out a blue bin program, we’re rolling out a brown bin program,” she explained, noting any county-wide waste collection system would account for the unique challenges in each municipality.

“That’s where the municipalities are going to see cost savings, especially the more remote ones, because it’s always the power in the numbers. It’s very expensive to get a private contractor to come and collect 200 households. Whereas if we’re getting a contractor for 14,000 homes, well then we might get a preferred rate on it.”

The MRC had two calls for interest open until July 7, one for a local composting facility and another for door-to-door collection in certain municipalities.

“The quantities that we generate in the Pontiac don’t merit a full platform composting facility like the one in Kaz. In order for a composting facility to be viable, it needs volume, and right now, to give you an example, Kaz isn’t even at maximum capacity,” she explained.

She said the call for interest is an attempt to see whether there is a local company that could run a smaller composting system, and how much this would cost.