Quebec municipality wins federal funding

The Regional Municipal County (RMC) of La Rivière-du-Nord, Quebec, will be receiving more than $9.1 million in Green Municipal Fund (GMF) funding for a project to reuse residual materials in its eco centres.

The RMC, which is northeast of Montreal, will be able to better manage residual materials, by significantly reducing landfill sites and recycling. Currently, the RMC manages four eco centres that recover 900 tonnes of residual materials per year. Only materials that are in a condition to be resold are accepted.

The funding will enable the RMC to build new infrastructure. This will include a re-use shop and a new energy-efficient eco centre in Saint-Jérôme, improving the Saint-Hippolyte and Prévost eco centres.

In addition, the network will have the ability to receive industrial, commercial, and institutional (ICI) waste and waste from small contractors. This recycling service offer also meets the objectives of the Québec Policy on Residual Materials and will make it possible to increase revenues.

Improved recovery

These improvements will: increase the materials diverted from 900 tonnes to more than 9,000 tonnes per year; increase in the recovery rate from 60 to 66 percent; reduce suspended particles in runoff water by 43 percent; and create energy savings of 25 percent or 478 gigajoules (GJ) per year.

Operations costs are projected to drop from $991/tonne in 2019 to $226/tonne in 2021.

“The success of re-use in the eco centres managed by the RMC of La Rivière-du-Nord is already known throughout the province,” said Bruno Laroche, prefect of the RMC of La Rivière-du-Nord and mayor of Saint-Hippolyte.

“Optimization of the network will not only make it possible to maintain this momentum, but also to recycle construction materials, which account for nearly half of the generation of residual materials on the territory. This funding represents both a recognition of the efforts made and a boost to continue improving performance and achieving the objectives of the RMC’s residual materials management plan.”

Green Municipal Fund

The Green Municipal Fund (GMF) is a $1-billion program funded by the Government of Canada and delivered by FCM. Since 2000, GMF has helped bring over 1,360 projects to life.

GMF projects have cut 2.7 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions—the equivalent of taking 608,000 cars off the road. It has created over 11,650 jobs across the country.