Preville on Politics
Montreal to adopt vacuum waste collection
Posted on May 28, 2008 by Philip Preville
Regular readers of this blog know of my enthusiasm for pneumatic waste collection. For years now, WaterfronToronto has been trying to get city hall to sign on to the idea for the West Don Lands. Well, I have just been tipped off to the news that Montreal has decided to install vacuum waste collection for its massive Quartier des Spectacles redevelopment.
Vacuum waste is the subject of my column in next month’s print edition, but it went to press before I could slip this latest news in, so I’m announcing it here. For now, suffice it to say that Toronto has lost its chance to become a North American showcase for an environmental technology that is quickly being adopted around the world.
Philip Preville
Veteran freelance writer Philip Preville lived much of his life in Montreal and Edmonton before he was lured, like so many Torontonians before him, by the promise of more work and a better living. A National Magazine Award winner and former Canadian Journalism Fellow at the University of Toronto’s Massey College, Preville writes Toronto Life’s politics column. He lives with his wife and one-year-old son in Riverdale, just close enough to the Don Valley Parkway that he can hear it when he steps outside his house—but just far enough away that it doesn’t keep him awake at night. On his office wall hangs a 1938–39 press pass belonging to his grandfather, Elias Gannon, who wrote for the Montreal Star.
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Mark Dowling May 28, 2008 at 4:40 p.m.
I'm not so worried about not being first since trailblazer = guinea pig. We only need recall Toronto's botched implemention of the SRT.
Philip Preville May 28, 2008 at 10:43 p.m.
If only we were to be guinea pigs. The technology has been around for 40 years and is in use across Europe and Asia. This is less a case of sound prudence than it is of what Montrealers call "paresse."