At the St. Mary’s Hospital Center in Montreal, tens of tons of waste avoid the dump every year thanks to the tenacity of Michel Perreault, an inspiring man armed with delightful inventiveness.
Worn smocks, old pens, containers of all kinds… In a cramped office, equipment normally destined for the trash is piled up from floor to ceiling. But this heterogeneous mass is worth gold in the eyes of Michel Perreault, environmental technician at the CIUSSS de l’Ouest-de-l’Île-de-Montréal.
This is the case, for example, of a huge bucket filled with AA batteries from single-use cautery devices, thrown away whole. “The instrument is only used once, but the batteries are still new! I’m going to find someone who can use them,” assures Mr. Perreault.
This is the magic of this environmentalist at heart. In his eyes, the waste of some is the raw material of others. In more than 20 years, by dint of persuasion and imagination, he has built up a vast international network of organizations, waste pickers and researchers interested in this sometimes beneficial windfall.
An international network
“These models are going to Guinea,” he says in front of the 40-year-old beds, still functional, but now deemed non-compliant. Many hospitals simply sent theirs, by the dozens, to the landfill. Michel Perreault, he found an organization ready to pick them up to ship them across the Atlantic. “In Africa, these crank beds are practical, because power cuts are frequent! »
In the same way, fridges find takers in community kitchens, blankets, pricks and disinfectant liquid are distributed to the homeless, rolls of cardboard end up in schoolchildren’s plastic art works, sterile fabrics cover the bottom of the cages at the SPCA, baby bottles are used to feed the animals at the Zoo de Granby… And books, thermometers, needles and slightly outdated bandages are sent to Ukraine, Cameroon or Haiti.
PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, THE PRESS
Large sterile plastic fabrics recovered by Michel Perreault served as an insulating layer integrated into the roadways of the new Samuel-De Champlain bridge.
From the Champlain Bridge to the Ultimate Dream
We even find traces of Michel Perreault in the new Samuel-De Champlain bridge. Always disappointed to see large, sterile, yet washable cloths thrown away after a single use, he found an engineering firm interested in the properties of this particular plastic. “She made it an insulating layer integrated into the roadways”, proudly says this follower of the circular economy.
Food waste is also in its sights. Three years ago, he acted as a matchmaker between the organization La Tablée des chefs and the heads of the CIUSSS kitchens. Today, dozens of prepared meals are donated each week by St. Mary’s Hospital Center and the Douglas Mental Health University Institute to food aid organizations.
Now, I would like each hospital in the CIUSSS to have a digester to make compost with table scraps. We would then reach zero waste, the ultimate dream.
Michel Perreault, environmental technician
On the lookout
Nothing escapes the eye of this tireless worker. Not a piece of furniture leaves the hospital before he has recovered the pencils, rubber bands and paperclips left in the drawers. “As soon as I see something, I wonder who it could be used for,” he says, opening a box full of old computer backup batteries. “I found a collector who buys them from me for the lead inside. »
Michel Perreault’s initiatives, in fact, not only allow the hospital to reduce its landfill and incineration costs. They also bring in money which is used to finance green initiatives, such as the planting of a thousand trees on the various CIUSSS sites. Who planted them? Michel Perreault, for the most part.
PHOTO MARCO CAMPANOZZI, THE PRESS
A volunteer dissects drug vials every week to recover their components: glass, aluminum and rubber.
Because this former dental technician only relies on a very small team of volunteers, mostly made up of welfare recipients or people with intellectual disabilities. They collect the objects left in the bins scattered around the hospital before sorting them. A task that often requires a good dose of meticulousness.
A medicine ampoule, for example, consists of a glass bottle, an aluminum lid and a rubber washer. Three half-days a week, in the cluttered little office, a man with autism spectrum disorder concentrates on dissecting them one by one. “He has an incredible ability to concentrate. It is very precious to me. »
Even though retirement is approaching, Michel Perreault still cherishes plenty of projects that sometimes go beyond the strictly hospital framework. He has also installed hives on the roofs of hospitals to help the bees. “Their work is necessary for the environment”, says this man invested with an equally essential mission.