Update

City hasn’t officially trashed the free compost program

Unless city council votes against scrapping the compost program on April 11, the program will, as planned, be dumped.

Following an article in the Bulletin about the program, Gatineau citizens started voicing their opinions against the decision, but it appears council has yet to vote on the matter.

The protocol is that a city service analyzes a question and makes recommendations which are discussed at a committee or commission before being tackled by council. Once at council, the matter is generally made public before a vote. However, for the compost program, the information indicating the program’s end was published online prematurely.

The question of nixing the program  was recommended by the environment committee chaired by Hull-Wright councillor Denise Laferrière, but council still needs to debate the question before it is made official.

Laferrière explained that the program’s goal was to raise citizen awareness about city composting and that, since its inception in 2011, the program has reached its limit. During the recent environment committee meeting, the city’s environment service was tight-lipped when asked about the program’s future, simply saying the information was made public too early.

A city spokesperson said that, while more than 2,000 households generally registered annually for their free compost, only 20% of those registered showed up to pick up their free compost at one of the four sites across the city.

During the distribution weekend, residents would pick up roughly 500,000 tons of compost, made from residents’ own table scraps collected in the brown bins weekly. While recommendations rarely get voted down at council, there’s still a chance the decision to cancel the program could be reversed.