For intelligent sorting | The Press

My column on sorting glass at the source seriously challenged you. I was overwhelmed to see how much you care about this topic. But above all, many of you have described to me the efforts you are making to properly recycle glass.

Many of you can benefit from the presence of a voluntary drop-off container in your neighborhood or municipality. Others have written to tell me that they dream of it happening at home.

Things are changing. We feel that citizens, who are fed up with the flawed collection and sorting system that is shaking their confidence, are taking matters into their own hands.

This column allowed me to discover a young entrepreneur who has just developed a container with an intelligent head capable of carrying out an impressive sorting job and, above all, of responding to the modernization plan for the deposit which will soon be implemented. before.

After working for a dozen years at 2M Resources, the largest glass conditioner in Quebec, David Rousseau created Groupe Vision Environnement (GVE). With his team, he developed a multi-material collection container adapted to our new reality.

Not only will this system collect non-returnable glass, but it will also incorporate the new deposit modernization standards, which provide for certain types of containers made of plastic, aluminum, cardboard and glass.

An imaging or barcode system will detect returnable containers and calculate the value. The person will receive a coupon that will allow him to claim the amount indicated at the retailer located nearby. The container is removable and allows efficient transport. It will simply be detached from the smart head and replaced with another that will be empty.

The harvested materials will then be transported directly to the packers. You will have understood that we are skipping the sorting center stage. This situation risks shaking up a sector that has been heavily criticized in recent months for its failures. “They won’t have the choice to give us space,” said David Rousseau.

For the moment, a few GVE containers are installed in Quebec municipalities, including Boucherville and Longueuil, which each have three drop-off points. In both cases, I was told that the picking and collection operations were going well. However, the “setpoint” function is not used.

“We are at the voluntary deposit stage, explains David Rousseau. The 100% automated technology will see the light of day next September. The next step will be to work with those who will have to manage the deposit system. We are preparing for phase 2 of the pilot project which will consist of collecting the consigned materials. »

A drop-off container costs around $20,000. One that is equipped with a smart head to meet the needs of the locker costs between $75,000 and $100,000.

This system should appeal to retailers who have expressed dissatisfaction with the handling of the new deposit rules.

David Rousseau, who presented a brief to the parliamentary committee in 2018, during work on the modernization of the deposit, firmly believes that this system will fit well into the small revolution that awaits us.

“When I was at 2M Resources, we lacked material,” he says. We had to develop partnerships with municipalities to find some, because the one that came from the sorting centers was too contaminated. It lowered its value to us. For sorting centers, we were not competitive enough. In short, it cost them less to send their glass to a landfill than to send it to us to be packaged and recycled. »

Also in this same column, I told you about the pilot project that is being carried out for the second year in Montreal. For now, two voluntary drop-off containers have been installed in the borough of Ahuntsic-Cartierville, at the Central Market and near Place Fleury.

I asked Émilie Thuillier, mayoress of this borough, why this laboratory seemed to drag on. “We were the first to do a participatory project in this direction. Except that in the meantime, this project has turned into a pilot project that serves the entire city of Montreal. »

M^me Thuillier shared an interesting detail with me. Initially, four containers were to be installed, but only two could be.

The noise generated by the containers has awakened the “not in my yard” phenomenon. We can deduce from this that it will not be easy to set up a glass collection network in Montreal.

The borough mayor recognizes that there are many things to sort out. “We discover that the containers can fill up quickly. We have no control over the arrivals. People sometimes leave the glass next to the containers, we find broken glass, corks on the bottles. This is what we are testing at the moment. »

David Rousseau wants to establish his system quickly and solidly in Quebec, because GVE, a company with about fifteen employees, is facing international competition.

For a thousand reasons, the recovery of glass has experienced a serious slippage. But I admit that it is frankly encouraging to see that solutions have been identified. And that a desire to change things sets in.