Clean Technologies And Québec’s New Residual Materials Management Policy

The Québec Ministry of Sustainable Development, Environment and Parks (MDDEP) recently published its new Residual Materials Management Policy, along with a first Five-Year Action Plan for 2010-2015 (together, "the Policy). The Policy aims to promote the goals of the Climate Change Action Plan and the Québec Energy Strategy.

In order to reduce, by 2015, the quantity of disposed residual materials to 700 kilograms per person, the Policy is implementing 10 measures to foster the growth of the recycling and energy production industries. One is banning the burial of organic matter in Québec.

By 2013, the MDDEP intends to ban the burial of paper and cardboard, beginning in 2010 with the development of a strategy for banning the burial of all categories of putrescible organic materials. By 2020, the ban will include leaves and grass cuttings, table scraps, and sludge from septic tanks and from purification of wastewater, in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and