parked in the yard outside city hall. Montreal executive committee member and Ville Saint Laurent borough mayor Alan De Sousa was all smiles as he showed off one of the city’s new “green” custom plastic bag.
“We wanted to improve the recycling process for both the citizens and the recycling people,” said De Sousa. “It’s custom bag light, it’s easy to carry and you can close it which means the wind can’t blow the papers all over the street.” Based upon industrial designer Claude Maufette’s original design, the bag is essentially a heavy-duty perforated plastic sheet folded into a three-dimensional carrier bag printing capable of holding up to 72 litres of recyclable material. During the next three months, 3,000 families in four different boroughs will get the chance to try out the custom printed shopping bag instead of using the city’s ubiquitous green box to store and process their recyclables.
With only months to go before she gets pushed out of her position as the mayor of the Plateau Mont-Royal borough and runs in Côte des Neiges, Helen Fotopoulos tried to grin and bear it as she dumped her load of trash into the truck’s open garbage bay. Borough mayor Michael Applebaum, fresh from a campaign photo session, was dressed in a clean and freshly pressed suit as he carried his load to the truck. He said he likes the new custom bags because it’s a practical solution to serious and sometimes dangerous situations caused by the borough’s aggressive recycling program.
“People who live on the top floor of a triplex often have problems bringing their box down to the street on recycling day,” he said. “The custom printed bags could be the solution to their problem.” Applebaum also likes the custom paper bags initiative because it works well within the context of the CDN-NDG borough’s own “green” program. Five separate streets, including sections of Melrose, Coolbrook, Regent, Harvard and Wilson Avenue, were chosen for the experiment because of the wide variety of residential housing units found along those streets. When asked about his design, Maufette said he wanted to work out a durable concept which would combine the best elements of both the traditional garbage custom plastic bag and the durable green box. “We ended up with a hybrid approach where both form and function combine to create a situation where the tool will adapt to its circumstances.”
At $16 per unit, Maufette’s carrier custom plastic bag can hold up to 20 more litres of paper, glass and assorted plastic containers compared to the city’s usual green box. Based upon its light weight and its easy storage qualities, the custom promotional bags solves a number of recycling problems for both residents and the recycling industry. For example, seasonal winds can no longer spread a week’s collection of newspapers all over the street because the bag remains closed to the elements until it’s finally dumped into the recycling truck. Maufette’s design cost the city $98,000 after which another $247,000 was paid to cast the original mould required to begin the bag’s production process. The city’s first 3,000 custom printed plastic bags cost another $160,000 and if all goes well, the city will spend another $6,700,000 to kick the project into high gear. By 2011, the city expects to supply at least 500,000 households with Montreal’s new green plastic custom plastic bag.
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