Implementation Assessment for Smart Waste Collection: Beaconsfield Takes the Lead

BEACONSFIELD, QUEBEC--(Marketwired - Oct. 24, 2017) - The City of Beaconsfield ranked first for household waste management as well as for the recovery of organic and recyclable materials, according to the Agglomeration of Montreal's waste material profile for 2016, published this fall.

The smart waste collection, implemented in 2016, is a key element of Beaconsfield's Waste Reduction Strategy, developed in cooperation with and for residents. Its approach relies on an incentive tariff that takes into account residents' efforts to reduce the quantity of waste they send to landfills and encourage more use of the other collection services offered by the City.

The implementation of smart waste collection owes its success, in part, to the financial support of RECYC-QUÉBEC and Éco Entreprises Québec. The financial support of these two organizations enabled financing of the external resources necessary to support communications, the door-to-door awareness campaign and the waste characterization audit before and after the project.

Now available on the City's website, the implementation report for smart waste collection reveals that waste tonnage has decreased by 51% per capita over 3 years, while the government's targets were exceeded both in terms of organic materials (66% compared to the target of 60%) and recyclable materials (78% compared to the target of 70%). Through the implementation of the pickup tariff structure, the City succeeded in reducing garbage collection costs by 42%, which has made it possible to provide additional services to the community without increasing the overall budget for waste management.

"We would like to thank RECYC-QUÉBEC and Éco Entreprises Québec for their valuable contribution to the implementation of an innovative approach to waste management. This exceptional performance confirms the significant shift in sustainable development undertaken by the municipal government to reach the governmental targets and demonstrate the advantages of a fair and flexible approach that enables everyone to be an actor for change," stated Beaconsfield's mayor, Georges Bourelle.

Responsible for financing municipal services for recycling collection in Quebec, Éco Entreprises Québec higlights the significant increase in the recovery rate of recycling materials thanks to the smart collection, without any significant increase in contamination by non-targeted materials.

"Éco Entreprises Québec is happy to have contributed, along with its partners, to demonstrating the effectiveness of the incentive tariff for waste in order to increase the performance of recycling collection," said Ms. Maryse Vermette, CEO of Éco Entreprises Québec. "We commend the City of Beaconsfield for putting forward an innovative solution that will inspire other municipalities in Québec."

"RECYC-QUÉBEC recognizes the waste and cost reduction associated with this initiative and congratulates the City of Beaconsfield for reinvesting this money in the improvement of waste material management services offered to its citizens," stated Dany Michaud, CEO of RECYC-QUÉBEC.

About Éco Entreprises Québec

E?co Entreprises Québec (E?EQ) is the organization that develops the Schedule of Contributions and collects company contributions, which are then redistributed to finance municipal curbside recycling services in Quebec. E?EQ also fosters innovation and the sharing of best practices to optimize the recyclable materials value chain. To do so, E?EQ cooperates, on the one hand, with companies to reduce the quantities of materials at the source and encourage the use of recyclable materials, and, on the other, with municipalities to increase recycling and the economic value of recovered materials.

E?EQ is a private non-profit organization created by companies that put containers, packaging and printed matter on Quebec's market. The organization was accredited by RECYC-QUE?BEC in 2005 in accordance with the Environment Quality Act.

About RECYC-QUÉBEC

Concerned with making Quebec a model for innovative and sustainable waste management to create a waste-free society, RECYC-QUÉBEC is a government-corporation created in 1990, the goal of which is to promote, develop and encourage reduction, reuse, recovery and recycling of containers, packaging, materials and products, as well as creating value from them for the purposes of conserving resources.