Green Patrollers Helping Residents Be More Eco-Friendly

If you see two green-shirted young women on bike or on foot this summer, they are not here to hand out tickets for environmental infractions, but to help residents become more eco-friendly. At a large recent community event, they introduced themselves and their projects.

“At the Summerfest, people didn’t know that we existed. They were really interested and asked a lot of questions,” said Lysianne Panagis, 23, who just finished an environmental geography degree and will soon go into a Master’s in urban studies. “We want to get around so that we can help them.”

Oana Coza, a 24-year-old who’s completing a Management degree, added that, besides making themselves available to the public, “we want to get a lot of suggestions from them as to what they would like to see in this area.”

The Green Patrollers are focussing their efforts at encouraging more recycling both in the residential and the industrial sectors. Concerning the former, it involves finding out who still needs the recycling nets that cover the bins and enable people to put more recyclables there and keep them from blowing away.

They are doing this by following the recycling trucks and checking to see where the nets are distributed, Coza explained, and also which households don’t have recycling bins at all. In that case, they would leave a small notice on where they could get one.

Eliz Demirciyan, an economic development official in charge of the project, added they also want to figure out if more residents would be willing to switch to the wheeled, 64-litre bins so they may recycle even more.

Panagis said they has seen many people put out three or four bins while Coza noted that they’ve seen cardboard boxes full of recyclables put out on the curb. Like all Quebec municipalities, TMR has been given the target of a 60 per cent landfill-diversion rate by 2008 as part of its comprehensive waste-management plan. (Two years ago, the Town had already reached 40 per cent).

For the industrial sector, the Town started to encourage paper and cardboard recycling last year on Paré, Royalmount, and Devonshire. This summer, the Green Patrollers will try to get the rest of that sector onboard the recycling train.

At the start of the summer, those businesses there were sent letters to encourage their participation. The Green patrollers conduct the follow-up and reply to any questions. “It has worked well. The people there are very receptive,” Panagis said.

The same has been the case with many residents. “They may not know all of the principles, but they are quite open,” she added.

While not a Green Patroller, the third member of TMR’s eco-team is Fredéric Abraham who has already been working here a few years to help people with composting and chemical-free gardening.

To help with the Town’s anti-idling by-law, they are also allowed to give out “courtesy” tickets to motorists who let their engines run more than a couple of minutes. When school begins at the end of August, they will start up awareness campaigns for recycling and climate change as well as to remind parents not to run their engines while waiting for their children in front of schools.

Finally, the two patrollers will set up information kiosks in front of Dupond & Dupont and another place during the second or third week of August to answer questions and receive any suggestions.

For residents interested in recycling, they can call at Public Works.