From Bac to Sac

So today is going to be the first day where bags will be used to hold the recycling for pick up instead of the "bacs verts" that we've been using all these years. I don't know how this will impact the work at the centre de triage where all the stuff is sorted, but it's definitely a good move from the residents' perspective. I do love those bac verts, especially the original heavy-duty ones. They are just tough and clunky and fun to handle. Plus, you could decorate them with some permanent marker action if you were so inclined. But the main problem is that a lot of paper and wrappings blew out of them and made a mess of the street every recycling day.

So the borough council here in the Plateau Mile End has decided to switch to bags. They put a box like this in front of everyone's door (well most people's, there was some minor kerfluffle about people not getting them and big apartment buildings that already use rolling containers will still be using them and not using the bags).




For the first week, if you leave your bac vert out, it will get picked up and taken to be recycled. So today it has started and the citizens seem to be getting the idea:



My dilemna is that the bags hold about twice as much as the bacs did and since we have a limited supply (when they run out, you can buy them at the hardware store*), I don't want to fill a half a bag. So I won't be participating in the fun this week. But next week we should have accumulated enough to fit one whole bag. Man, what happens if it works out to 1.5 bags! Do I then have to wait another week. Will I be stuck in a perpetual cycle of having to keep a quantity of recycling on hand because I'm too cheap and anal to not put out a full bag?

It also looks like either they've hired a new contractor or the existing one is using new trucks, because this time it's a shiny white recycling truck instead of the garbage trucks they started using last year (which really put the doubt in people's minds about whether anything was actually being recycled).


And right behind is the other truck picking up the bacs verts for their recycling and reincarnation. Some people will keep theirs, for sure, as they are quite handy for storing, carrying and planting. I'll be keeping mine, since I'm probably going to be only putting out recycling every two weeks (fingers crossed), I'll need to keep the stuff somewhere.

Adieu les bacs verts! Merci pour tout!


*This reminds me of what the city should really be doing. Every household is given a garbage can of a certain size. That is your weekly allotment of garbage. If you go over that, the garbage has to be put in a special bag, which can be bought at a fairly expensive price (say $5). This is done in many cities in the States and is a huge motivator for people to cut down on their waste.