Skip to navigation Skip to content

1 min

Environmentalists applaud Quebec bottle deposit hike

Published on 

Montreal, June 11, 2012 – Equiterre welcomes the announcement from the Minister of Sustainable Development, Environment and Parks, Pierre Arcand, to the effect that Quebec will be increasing the bottle deposit from 5 to 10 cents. This is the first increase to the province's bottle deposit since it was introduced more than 25 years ago. 

"Given that recycling aluminum only takes 5% of the energy required to produce new aluminum, this is good news that will encourage people to recycle more," says Steven Guilbeault, deputy executive director of Equiterre. "This is all the more necessary since we send $20 million to landfills each year – unacceptable waste for Quebec society."

In increasing its deposit, Quebec is following in the footsteps of several other Canadian provinces.

Equiterre also commends the decision to explore the possibility of extending the deposit to other types of containers. "Just think of the astronomical numbers of water bottles used. And there are all kinds of other containers that could be good candidates for a deposit," said Guilbeault. Equiterre hopes the Quebec government will act quickly to develop new deposit measures.

- 30 -

Source:

Eveline Trudel-Fugère
Equiterre
514 792-5222