Although Toronto has yet to experience its official snowfall of the year– that will no doubt catapult us into wintry conditions best suited for polar bears– Canadians seem to still be the talk of the town thanks to how well we remove our snow.
This all started when a video went viral over the weekend on X showing a snow removal unit in Montreal getting down to business to clear heavy snow.
Not long after, Americans flooded the comments section in amazement at how Canada effectively removes it.
Now Toronto reposted the video to TikTok where more than a thousand people weighed-in on the conversation.
Some even had some genuine questions.
“Lifelong Californian here! Where do they haul the snow off to? What do they do with it?,” one TikTok user asked.
“Oh my gosh I’m losing my mind over this, how do they do it?” another asked.
WHERE DOES THE SNOW GO?
Montreal reportedly runs one of the largest snow-removal operations in the world.
According to CBC News, it requires approximately 3,000 workers to get rid of snow from 10,000 kilometres of Montreal streets each winter, which can set the city back by $165 million a year.
Additionally, around 300,000 truckloads of snow are taken off the streets over the course of one winter.
Montreal apparently even buys 200,000 tonnes of salt every year.
Interestingly, up until the end of the 1980s, snow was simply dumped into the river which would pollute it with salt and gravel.
Today, most of the snow ends up in the city’s sewer system and gets treated with the rest of Montreal’s sewage before being released into the river.
“Under the law, when you clear snow, you must go to an authorized disposal site to get rid of it. If you dump it anywhere else, you are liable to be fined,” Montreal’s city website explains.
From one major city to another, Toronto also has its respective snow removal operation.
In fact, there are five snow storage and three snow melter sites in Toronto, according to the city’s website.
“Plowed snow remains to the side of the road unless it accumulates to an extent where it needs to be removed further onto the adjacent right of way. During snow removal operations, snow is transported to designated snow dump sites and stays there until it melts,” the City of Toronto told Now Toronto in an email statement.
