Construction industry | “We throw good materials in the garbage”

The construction industry must modernize by recovering materials, sometimes still good, from construction sites and stop throwing them away simply because it is cheaper and more efficient, says the FTQ-Construction in a transition plan presented to its members and unanimously accepted. Solutions supported by Équiterre, Greenpeace and Recyc-Québec.

Isabelle Dube
The Press

With 1.3 million tons of waste per year, Quebec’s construction industry is building entire cities in landfills.

Whether on large construction sites or when you are renovating your kitchen, for the sake of efficiency and to limit costs, contractors will demolish, throw away and rebuild with new materials, and even waste them.

CRD waste (construction, renovation, demolition) increased by 40% from 2011 to 2020.

“The plan responds to the discomforts that workers experience in their daily practice,” said Philippe Lapointe, communications advisor at the FTQ-Construction, which represents 85,000 worker members in the industry, in an interview. “There are many fears about the waste of materials on construction sites and the members were reassured and relieved to see that there are solutions. »

The union’s plan aims to change the construction industry by envisaging a sustainable way of building from the design of buildings. “Rather than opting for ‘ready-to-demolish’, we must train employers, designers, engineers, architects to integrate a sustainable vision of construction and also train the employees who will build them”, explains- he.

Greenpeace, which has had disagreements in the past with the union, was pleasantly surprised to see the depth of the reflection of the FTQ-Construction.

Équiterre also supports this kind of initiative in a context of shortage of materials, where the circular economy can be one of the solutions. “It shows that environmental issues no longer stay in the wake of the environment,” says Marc-André Viau, director of government relations.

The Brick Recyc solution

Reusing 100% of the bricks on a construction site is far from being a utopia. The solution exists. It was invented in Quebec in 2021 by Maçonnerie Gratton and saves time and money.

“We throw good materials in the garbage, because it pays more, it doesn’t make sense,” says Tommy Bouillon, president of Maçonnerie Gratton and vice-president of the Association of Masonry Contractors of Quebec.

The Brique Recyc machine works so well that France, with a shortage of bricks and strict regulations, is snapping it up. An American company wishes to obtain the distribution contract for the United States, while here, Maçonnerie Gratton and Atwill Morin use it for construction sites in Quebec and Ontario.

“Day after day, I saw that we put high quality brick in good condition in waste containers to rest new brick with holes that are only 3 ½ inches instead of 4”, explains Tommy Bouillon .

The machine can be mounted in scaffolding. It makes it possible to deconstruct a wall, recover the bricks, clean them and rebuild the wall, even in cramped streets, with four employees rather than five.

According to calculations by Maçonnerie Gratton, by using 30 machines 200 days a year, Quebec could clean 4.8 million bricks a year. “Which would lower the carbon footprint for the building by 185,000 tonnes of CO₂ annual. »

Solutions tested

The circular economy acceleration laboratory for the construction sector of the Center for Intersectoral Studies and Research in the Circular Economy (CERIEC) of the École de technologie supérieure (ÉTS) is currently testing solutions with 14 projects, including the renovation of a duplex in Montreal, the recovery of changed doors and windows in the residential and commercial sectors, as well as the deconstruction of a building in Gaspésie.

“It’s as if the buildings were disposable products, basically, observes Hortense Montoux, project manager of the construction lab. The materials are not assembled in order to be able to disassemble them in order to reuse them. »

The researcher notes several obstacles to the reuse of materials, in particular regulations. She welcomes the plan of the FTQ-Construction, because the actors in the field are a lever, she says, “to transfer the knowledge that we are generating with our projects”.

Recyc-Québec also supports all material reuse and recovery initiatives. The work of one of its committees verifies whether source sorting practices on construction sites, the integration of recycled materials or the development of potential reuse markets could be improved. In April 2021, financial assistance was granted for the adoption of best practices for sorting wood at the source.

Climate change and its extreme heat events affect construction workers. “We don’t want to be left behind. We have to adapt and we want to be ready,” concludes Philippe Lapointe, of the FTQ-Construction.