While Britain announced that it will ban food waste from landfills, notre amis in Quebec just announced a plan to do the same by 2013.
Part of the impetus for the move came from Québécois policymakers’ realization that the province wouldn’t be able to
meet its goal of composting 60% of food waste by 2012. Since Quebec is only at 12% now, they realized drastic change was needed.
Hence, the food waste ban, which is part of the 2010-2015 Five Year Action Plan (a nod to Stalin?). In addition, throwing away paper will be illegal by next year. That’s ambitious, if the U.S. is any indication. Here, paper is the most common material discarded in landfills.
Also in the plan–a lot of stuff in French. Unfortunately, the province declined to provide an English language version of the action plan or the press release. But I will rest easy in knowing that:
Le projet de politique québécoise de gestion des matières résiduelles, assorti d’un plan d’action de cinq ans, vise un grand objectif : faire en sorte que la seule matière éliminée au Québec soit le résidu ultime.
Comments
4 responses to “Quebec Steps Up”
Yay for Quebec! I find that they generally seem to be ahead of the way (with many European countries, for example), on environmental issues. Glad to see them stepping up and taking action.
I didn’t realize that Quebec was exempt from the bilingual requirement of Canadian law. They’re so enthusiastic about making sure the other provinces comply.
It did feel quite European when I visited as a 13-year-old. Now, if they would only post the plan in English, too, I’d be ecstatic.
I did some checking: Quebec is not exempt from issuing official statements & signage in both languages. I was not able to determine if this applies to internet postings or if print alone was enough. I found myself imagining a room in the most obscure Quebec government office building possible, stuffed with the one English language copy of every bill promulaged by the provincial government.