Outspoken former Plateau-Mont-Royal borough mayor Luc Ferrandez says he'll put his recyclables out on Friday, when the truck comes by his street.
After that, he says he won't put his recyclables out again.
Ferrandez was a longtime Projet Montréal stalwart who left office earlier this year, citing a lack of accomplishment on environmental issues on the part of the Plante administration. As he made his resignation announcement in May, Ferrandez called for "nothing short of a war effort" in terms of environmental measures, which he believes should have included things like drastically higher parking rates, taxes on cars entering the downtown area, and new taxes on foreign investments and meat.
So why is he turning on recycling?
He told 98.5 FM — where he now works as a commentator — that far too little of what goes into recycling bins actually gets recycled as it should, and much of the glass, plastic and cardboard winds up in the garbage anyway, or is burned up, or ends up overseas. As little as 7 per cent of the plastic containers that goes into recycling bins, he says, actually gets recycled.
Meanwhile, he says much of the paper and cardboard that makes it to recycling plants can't be recycled, because too often it ends up being encrusted with the glass from compression in the recycling trucks, rendering it useless.
Ferrandez says he still believes in the idea of recycling, but would like to see mayor Valérie Plante to find ways to ensure that far more of what gets put into the bins actually gets recycled. He says he'd like to see his former colleagues come up with a plan to do that between now and the time she's up for re-election in two years.