Hydro-Québec collects 38 million by selling its scrap

Selling your dresses, toys, slow cooker or bits of gutter on the internet has become commonplace. Useless (or almost) to organize a garage sale, online platforms are remarkably effective in getting rid of your belongings.

Companies are also left with used, useless or end-of-life goods. But rare are those who have the reflex to put all this on sale. The exercise requires time, dedicated people, storage space and expertise. Because it is not easy to find outlets for your scraps, especially when it comes to unusual materials.

The dump is always the easiest option. But in 2023, do we still want this to be the first reflex? Certainly not.

At Hydro-Québec, the desire to get rid of waste in an ecological way has existed for years. But the efforts are more and more sustained, which gives remarkable results. “There is a big growth. We took matters into our own hands. In five years, we went from 10 to 37.8 million sales. We make a better job marketing and the price of metals has increased”, explained to me the head of the service of the valuation of surplus movable assets of the Crown corporation, Maxime Gilbert. His team consists of nine people.

The list of what is sold to the highest bidder is as long as it is diverse: snowmobiles, aerial work platforms, trucks, saw benches, drills, snow blowers, snow groomers, copper, iron, aluminum, generators, containers, transformers, filing cabinets, offices…

And even the fried potato oil used in cafeterias in northern Quebec. “Until two years ago, we paid a company that came to pick it up. Now we sell it, says Maxime Gilbert. It is not significant on the 38 million, but it has gone from waste to a source of income. “It is made into biofuel, cosmetics and animal feed.

Sometimes it is impossible to sell certain goods. No one wants to pay for these items, but there’s still a way to do better than burying them with a little digging.

This is how Hydro-Quebec found an outlet for its “phenomenal quantity” of satchels that were sleeping somewhere. After contacting the school boards, who did not want them, Groupe AFFI took them, in exchange for a certain amount of money. Its employees, most of whom are disabled, break up the binders, allowing the cardboard and metal rings to be recycled. So far, 50,000 have escaped the dump.

Almost the same thing with work clothes, like these coats designed to protect workers down to -40°C and their ultra-warm mittens. It’s “worth a fortune”, but once worn out, what to do with it? They are given to the CFER network, a group of 23 school-companies that trains young people with significant academic delays. The clothes are repaired and sold, so that the activity is self-financing.

The computer equipment is sold to the integration company (non-profit) Insertech, in Montreal. Industrial equipment and tools head to the auctions organized by Ritchie Bros., in Mont-Saint-Hilaire. Office furniture is going to Saint-François-du-Lac, at Matériaux et surplus Lefebvre, whose online stock will surely disconcert you!

As for vehicles of all kinds, they are sold at auction or directly to dealers. Hydro-Québec has of course benefited from the marked increase in prices during the pandemic. His old pick-ups, in particular, were then sold at “crazy prices”. The state corporation has also set up a network “to give things internally”. Everyone prefers new, but it avoids a lot of unnecessary purchases.

What kind of scrap is the biggest challenge? The large porcelain cylinders found in the “substations” of the high-voltage transmission network. The reclamation team is looking for a company that could grind the material to add it to other materials used to fill under a sidewalk, for example. “That’s about the best you can do with it. For the moment we are in expenditure, it is a scrap. But we may have found a taker, ”hopes Maxime Gilbert.

At the Center for Technology Transfer in Industrial Ecology (CTTEI), DG Claude Maheux-Picard was flabbergasted to learn that Hydro-Quebec had made tens of millions of dollars by selling its scrap. “Wow, that’s amazing! Let’s see! It’s a good case in point. I hope it will inspire other organizations. »

An expert in the circular economy and the recovery of industrial waste, she taught me that it was “quite rare” for an organization to make an effort to sell its things, apart from its computer equipment. Desjardins was the only other example she could name.

Resale represents logistical and storage issues, but rarely brings in money. “Those who take steps, it’s because they find that throwing things away doesn’t make sense,” says Claude Maheux-Picard. Unfortunately, companies that would like to make the circular economy are “poorly served”. They have to fend for themselves, or almost, so that it is “much more complicated” for them than for the ordinary citizen.

To conclude, the CEO of the CTTEI had an interesting suggestion for Hydro-Quebec: create a fund with its 38 million to help small businesses or organizations to do like her.

The message is launched!