July 1st - Montreal’s Moving Day --- Is it just a headache, or a social and environmental disaster ? ...

Montreal’s unique early-summer moving period is more than musical chairs on steroids. Many local experts believe it is a monumental social and environmental disaster that could easily be avoided.

When so many people try to move house in such a short period of time at the end of June and early July, the hassles experienced by everyone in the moving chain (from movers to tenants to landlords) are legendary. But what about the impact of this move on our environment? What about the stresses on the city’s social infrastructure and on charitable organizations set up to help underprivileged families in Montreal?

Last year, the City of Montreal’s Waste Management department hauled away more than 475,000 kilograms of large items and household furnishings discarded during the late June and early July moving period. The junk collected included sofas, mattresses, appliances such as fridges and stoves, and all other oversized household furnishings that wouldn’t normally be collected by the City’s regular weekly curbside service, and is in addition to the regular waste and garbage volume that was collected during that time, according to Jacques-Alain Lavallée of the City of Montreal’s Communications department.

While the social impact of thousands of kilos of junk left lying in Montreal streets is undeniable, the impact on the area’s landfills is equally staggering. Robert De Pellegrin and Brad Whitmore, Montreal-area franchise partners for 1-800-GOT-JUNK?, a company which recycles or donates to charity more than 70 percent of the materials they pick up, set up an eye-opening comparison. “People don’t stop to think about it, but 475,000 kilos of junk is the equivalent of trashing more than 5,000 refrigerators. If they were laid end to end, the junk line would stretch for eight kilometers! That is a huge stress on our ever-diminishing landfill capacity, and a real environmental burden that could be avoided with a little planning,” De Pellegrin said.

Charitable organizations such as le Carrefour d’Entraide in Lachine see Moving Day in Montreal as a wasted opportunity. “We have a different perspective. Here we are in one of the worst economic downturns in 70 years, and people are discarding household furnishings that could otherwise go to help others. Just drive down any street and you see sofas, beds, appliances, desks, tables, chairs and all sorts of other household items left at the curbside because people could not or did not want to move them,” said Jocelyne Coallier, Director at the Carrefour d’Entraide in Lachine. “We see over 300 people a day, and many of them have greater need than ever for these items, to help their families survive job losses or other economic hard times, but they will never have the opportunity. It’s a very unfortunate situation.”

For the parties most involved, landlords and tenants alike, 1-800-GOT-JUNK? is proving to be an essential service in many ways. During the moving period, moving companies are overbooked and charge abnormally high rates. When a moving truck arrives at an apartment that has not been completely vacated by the previous tenant, a logistical logjam begins. Tenants moving into the apartment are forced to pay the movers’ waiting charges until the apartment is cleared. In turn, the delay cascades onto the next job and the one after that.

Frustrated landlords can do little about this in the midst of the moving rush, as they lack the resources to get junk-filled vacant apartments cleaned out in time for the next tenants’ arrival, said Martin A. Messier, President of the Quebec Landlords Association (APQ).

“A service like 1-800-GOT-JUNK? is appealing to both landlords and tenants,” Whitmore said. “Not only can we quickly clean up furnishings left by other tenants, often on short notice, but we also have a strong social responsibility side to our operations. 1-800-GOT-JUNK? is a global leader in recycling and reusing the stuff people no longer need. Instead of hauling it to landfill, we have built a network of local charities to ensure that well over two-thirds of the junk we collect will be donated to help others in our area,“ he said.