Eighty recycling trucks will come today to deliver their loot to the Tricentris plant in Lachute. In the reception area, a tractor pushes the material and feeds the conveyor belt which marks the starting point of a 20-minute journey during which the pell-mell debris will turn into bales of cardboard, paper, plastic or metal.
The citizen’s effort ends as soon as the collection truck disappears at the end of his street. Good riddance ! For the rest of the blue bin ecosystem, this is where it all begins. However, to ensure the success of the recycling of our waste, the decisions made at home are of paramount importance.
Watching the conveyor in the reception area for two minutes, we see a cushion, a reusable bag, a garden hose, a fence, a plastic baseball bat, a mop, etc. should never have ended up in the bin. Some are downright rubbish. Others are not targeted by selective collection, which only targets containers, packaging and printed matter.
Does the citizen make “a good work » ? “In 80% of cases, yes! Is it perfectible? Of course. We could aim for 90%,” replies Grégory Pratte, who guides The duty in the Tricentris factory. This non-profit organization sorts recyclable material from more than 200 municipalities in Quebec. Nicknamed “the coach du bac”, Mr. Pratte appears on television and on the Internet to help people recycle better.
He must fight cynicism: the recycling environment does not arouse public confidence. According to a Recyc-Québec survey conducted in 2021, half of the population doubts that recyclable materials put in the bin are indeed recycled. A visit to the Lachute sorting center rather gives the impression of a relentless desire to do well. Here, only 20% of the material received goes to the dump. Most of it is garbage.
“People make mistakes, they put on things that don’t look good, that’s why you shouldn’t be dismissive,” says Stephanie Hoffman, a triage team leader. Employees sometimes come across pets that are still alive, she says… They have already seen a ninja’s sword, a fur coat and even a suitcase full of money.
Undesirable materials complicate the work of employees, pose dangers and reduce the profitability of the sorting centre. The latter must pay $75 per ton for the burial of the waste. It should be noted that it has every interest in recycling eligible objects as much as possible: the majority of its income comes from the sale of sorted materials, which are typically worth a few hundred dollars per tonne.
Promote in Quebec
In the factory, humans and machines work shoulder to shoulder. Magnets grab the metal. Blades separate the cardboard. Jets of air propel pieces of plastic. In front of one of the innumerable conveyors, two men and two women remove the largest waste and empty the plastic bags. They wear a filter mask, earmuffs and good gloves. It drives fast. One of the men grabs a lawn chair.
On one of the carpets, the magnetic tape of an old video cassette is stuck. We see the black band stretching over the conveyor downstream. The machine resists: for the moment, this “long object” — as we say in the jargon — does not block it. Watch out for ropes, chains or pipes, which do not fit in the bin. “We end up with surprises in the material and, oops! it’s blocking, “says Michel Cadorette, the director of the sorting center.
The factory, which hums 16 hours a day, 5 days a week, has very little leeway to make up for lost time. Each hour of forced break costs $1500. After one year, the sorting center has lost $250,000 due to interruptions caused by objects that should never have ended up in the blue bin.
At the end of the chain, a press compacts the material to make bales. Into a large bundle of compressed plastic, a few pieces of cardboard squeezed out. These intruders are called “contaminants”. Contrary to what some citizens sometimes imagine, their presence does not spoil all of the material. Buyers tolerate 5 to 10% contamination, says Pratte.
In this room, stacked bales graze the ceiling. Cardboard and plastic will soon take the path of recyclers, such as Cascades or Plastrec. The glass will go to the Tricentris micronization plant, where it will be made into abrasives, aggregates or sands. In a garage door, we see the trailer of a truck filled to the brim with aluminum cans. Two million cans — returnable or not — land here every week. They will go to Tomra, in Baie-d’Urfé, who then sends them to foundries.
Most of the recycled material that comes out of sorting centers in Quebec is now recycled in the province. In 2012, only 48% of this material ended up in a Quebec conditioner or recycler, according to Recyc-Québec. In 2021, the proportion has risen to 61%. Sorting centers have every interest in selling in Quebec: they reduce the cost of transporting bales.
Two major changes in sight
Poorly designed packaging represents an obstacle to effective recycling. Unstretchable flexible plastic bags are not recyclable, for example. From 2025, things will start to change. Achieving recovery and recycling objectives will then rest on the shoulders of companies that market containers, packaging and printed matter in Quebec. They will have every interest in choosing easily recyclable products.
Another important change will be implemented next November. The government will then begin to gradually impose the extended deposit. Eventually, it will target all beverage containers. Quebec hopes that this will reduce the number of bottles placed in the trash. However, it is not yet clear whether citizens will flock to the new gobbling machines en masse.
“The deposit is a good idea if you reuse the container, as you do with local beer and a pint of milk in a glass,” says Mr. Pratte. However, with the aluminum can or the cardboard container of juice, there is no reuse possible: even on deposit, these containers will simply be recycled. What’s the point of asking people to go to a drop-off point if a recycling truck is already driving past them? ask the coach Tray.
Meanwhile, in the factory, the sorters continue their essential work. Do you get used to carpets that spin at full speed? “I remember, when I came back, 23 years ago, it took me two weeks to get used to it, answers Mme Hoffmann. I didn’t have a car, I was young, I used to come by bike with my caps of steel! she laughs, always proud to “do something good for the planet”.