Recyc-Québec just released its first study on litter found along highways and riverbanks across the province and the results aren’t pretty.
Unsurprisingly, much of the waste found along highways could be recycled, and plastic makes up a significant portion of the debris discarded by Quebec drivers.
The report doesn’t necessarily measure the amount of trash found along the highways, but rather, its composition.
The public corporation under the Québec Ministry of the Environment, commissioned Stratzer, a waste management consulting firm, to analyze the waste. The amount collected likely represents only a tiny fraction of the litter discarded annually by motorists along Quebec’s highways.
They found that terms of volume, over 70 per cent of the waste consisted of recyclable materials: plastic, paper, cardboard, glass, and metal. Unsurprisingly, plastic was the most prevalent, accounting for over 40 per cent of the materials sampled. The trashcape alongside highways included plastic, aluminum, and glass beverage containers, bags and packaging, pieces of polystyrene, coffee cups, car parts, and even tires.
The other component of Recyc-Québec’s study focused on analyzing waste collected along various waterways. Recyc-Québec partnered with the organization La Mission 1000 tonnes, whose objective is to remove as much debris as possible from different bodies of water. The cleanup took place in seven riverside parks located in Montreal, Laval, Drummondville, La Prairie, and Quebec City. In total, nearly 2.5 tonnes of debris were collected and then analyzed.
The picture is somewhat different along the riverbanks, with construction, renovation, and demolition waste topping the list of trash found and possibly transported there by water. Among the most common types of debris found were metal and glass, but also plastic.
The results, according to Recyc-Québec, seem to indicate that Quebecers haven’t yet gotten the message that throwing their garbage out of their car windows while driving can cause significant environmental damage. With these results in hand, the possibility of a future awareness campaign to increase public responsibility, or even higher fines for littering are strong possibilities being mulled over.
