Most Montreal businesses comply with ban on single-use plastics

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Toby Bouchard said it has cost him just a few pennies to comply with the city’s ban on some single-use plastics.

“It really wasn’t a problem,” said Bouchard, the owner of the Brook café and pizza restaurant on Wellington St. in Verdun. “I just went to the same supplier and he gave me cardboard containers to replace the ones I used to buy in plastic. It was a bit more expensive. For the lid for coffee cups, it cost just two cents difference.”

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Bouchard said it’s because of the small price difference that he has no problem with the bylaw, which came into effect a year ago.

On Monday, the city highlighted the success of the bylaw, which bans certain plastic materials, requires that restaurants offer reusable cutlery for those dining in and bamboo cutlery for takeout. It also bans plastic cups, straws and stir sticks, and those caught offering the products can be fined between $400 and $4,000.

The city’s team of 32 inspectors visited roughly 9,000 of the 9,500 businesses targeted by the ban over the year and reported a 92 per cent compliance rate, explained Marie-Andrée Mauger, the city’s executive committee member in charge of the ecological transition. Those who were not in compliance received a second visit, and, if they still didn’t comply, they were fined. Fewer than 40 fines were issued after those second visits, Mauger said.

She added Bouchard’s experience jives with the city’s evaluation that switching to more environmentally friendly options wouldn’t cost much more to the consumer at the end of the line.

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“We estimated in 2021 that it would be five to 10 cents per order,” Mauger told reporters while standing next to Bouchard and Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante at Brook.

Mauger said the city has not yet totalled the amount of trash sent to landfills in 2023, but that there was a five per cent decrease observed last year already.

She admitted the bylaw isn’t perfect because even though cups sold for single use are now recyclable, many still end up in trash cans. They’re also often not recycled even if they are tossed into public recycling bins, because most have non-recyclable material mixed in and are rejected at recycling plants.

Those who really want to recycle the cups should bring them home and place them in their own recycling bins, but Mauger said the real solution is to avoid buying a paper cup in the first place.

“We should really be heading more towards reusable cups,” she said.

Plante said she’s proud of the city’s single-use plastics ban, and said she’d like to see a province-wide ban come into effect to make it more widespread.

“Montreal did it and other cities have done it too; I think all of Quebec should now ban these plastics, too,” she said. “There are suppliers, there is an interest.”

Reacting to the city’s announcement, Karel Ménard, the executive director of the Quebec coalition for ecological waste management, said he’s pleased with the compliance rate of businesses.

“It’s a start,” Ménard said. “We have to act step by step. Imagine if we banned all single-use right away, there would be a revolution. But you have to get people used to this and get people to understand why it’s important to reduce their consumption of single-use plastics.

“We can’t solve all the problems in one year, but maybe in six or 10 years, we won’t have single-use plastics anymore. I hope the next step will be a provincial law about that.”

jmagder@postmedia.com

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