by PATRICK LEJTENYI

Cleaning up a dirty Montreal has been a major preoccupation for the municipal government. But some discussion remains about Montreal’s unsung, front-line tool against filth: the noble garbage and recycling bins.

Finding the perfect bin is like building a better mousetrap: It isn’t as easy as it looks. Last month, the downtown Ville-Marie and Plateau boroughs yanked the three-holed recycling bins because they weren’t making enough money with ad space sales. And by next spring, they’ll be putting the kibosh on a pilot project that hasn’t turned out as well as expected.

The project involves only one bin, but it’s a big one. The Eucan MegaBin, now standing on the northeast corner of Hotel-de-Ville and Ontario, is about seven feet high, five long and maybe a foot wide. It was designed and installed by Eucan, the Toronto-based subsidiary of a large Mexico-City-based street furniture corporation. Each of the thin sides has an opening for recyclable materials, cigarette butts and garbage. The panelling, it’s hoped, could be sold as ad space.

Things didn’t turn out so great. According to Ville-Marie borough communications rep Jean-Yves Duthel, the Eucan bin was woefully inappropriate for Montreal for several reasons, including, yes, the weather. There wasn’t any third-party advertising on the Eucan bin when the Mirror paid it a visit late last week, but clearly the potential was there. The city is looking at other designs, some of which may include advertising, come the spring. Eucan, says CEO Rolando Garcia, will be presenting the city with several different options over the next few months.

Perhaps the city would do well to look at Toronto. When Eucan was granted a MegaBin pilot project there late last year, ward councillors were given the option to use them or not. “About two-thirds said yes,” says Ron Nurwisah, of the Toronto Public Space Committee, a grassroots advocacy organization. The city also encouraged Toronto residents to fill out online questionnaires about the project. The response, according to Nurwisah, was generally negative. “People said they were too big and it was difficult to distinguish them from advertising,” he says. “And, depending on how they were sighted, they were unsafe or inconvenient to use. There’d be maybe half a foot between the edge of the sidewalk and the end of the bin.”

Nurwisah says that Eucan is also dragging its heels to remove the unwanted bins.

Meanwhile, Montreal’s recycling bins may be getting a makeover. Next week, the public is invited to attend hearings on redesigning the bins to make them more adaptable to soggy, windy Montreal weather.

“Many of the bins now don’t have a cover,” says municipal media rep François Goneau. “The snow and the rain can make it much more difficult to recycle some of the material.”

They also need to get bigger, as more and more people recycle, and because Montreal is lagging behind its provincially-mandated target of recycling 60 per cent of all materials. “In 2004, we only recycled 34 per cent,” says Goneau.

The public consultation takes place on Wednesday, Aug. 30 at City Hall (275 Notre-Dame E., 7:30 p.m.). The recommendations will be given to the executive committee on Sept. 7, and recommendations will be adopted Sept. 14.