[PHOTOS] Clothes, pots, diapers: this is what Quebecers put in their recycling bin

Clothes, electronic devices, pots, baby diapers, leftover food… The many unwanted items that Quebecers throw in their recycling bins make life difficult for workers and machinery. sorting centers.

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“We can find everything: computers, textiles…. I have already taken out a flattened oven hood in a box,” says Mauro Pecchia, supervisor of day sorting operations at the Lachine Sorting Center.

The newspaper spent time in two sorting centers, in Lachine and Terrebonne, to see what is thrown into recycling, but should not be. In light of everything that is found there, one wonders if Quebecers really know how to recycle, when this practice is supposed to have been anchored here for more than thirty years.

“If the citizen could improve by a little 15%, that would be good,” says Dany Dumont, general manager of Tricentris, which owns three sorting centers in the province, including that of Terrebonne.

At the Lachine sorting center, the mountain of cardboard and paper that accumulates when the trucks arrive is impressive. We can already see a pillow, pieces of plastic toys and numerous reusable bags that cannot be recycled.

Everyone will head towards the presort, on a conveyor belt… which suddenly stops shortly after our arrival.

“It happens almost every day. Lately it’s been because of dead squirrels. They end up in the bins because people put a lot of dirty containers,” explains Mauro Pecchia.

Presort

Another fear of employees (and machinery): “long bodies,” such as plastic or fabric tarpaulins, a Christmas garland or even a discreet clothesline seen at the Terrebonne Sorting Center.

“It can break the equipment and cause the entire sorting center to shut down,” says Pierre Dupont, director of the plant which processes, among other things, materials from Laval and Boisbriand.

In both centers, pre-sorting is therefore crucial: this is where employees remove bulky items and materials which may be dangerous later and which should not have ended up here.

In Terrebonne, there is enough to fill a huge container with wooden planks and other construction materials that should have gone to the ecocenter. Metal hangers and pans join the container intended for scrap dealers.

We also remove old electronic devices, car chargers and batteries, many of which are still in the bin.

“If there is lithium in the devices, it poses a fire risk,” emphasizes Mauro Pecchia. The last time this happened at the Lachine plant was three months ago. The firefighters had to intervene.

Infernal cadence

Next comes the sorting of paper, plastics and glass.

It is partly done by machines, but employees are essential to avoid contamination at the finish line as much as possible.

In Terrebonne, The newspaper experienced the paper sorting line, where the speed is hellish: 20 tonnes per hour, the equivalent of a crowded city bus.

Even in excess, it’s impossible to remove everything that shouldn’t be there: a diaper, more reusable bags, a glove… Removing flyers still wrapped in plastic takes a lot of time.

Further on, while sorting the glass, chicken bones and a hot dog slipped into a conveyor. “It can block the holes in the vibrating tables and prevent the glass from passing through,” explains Pierre Dupont.

After all these steps, the materials end up in clean bales of plastic, glass, paper, cardboard which will be sent to brokers and companies interested in recycling them.

The two questions to ask yourself before put an object in the recycling bin:

1. Is it a container, packaging or print?
2. Is it cardboard, paper, plastic, glass or metal?

• Newsprint (printed on paper)
• Magazines (printed in plastic)
• Yogurt pot (plastic container)
• Oil bottle (glass container)
• Egg box (cardboard packaging)
• Canned (metal container)

• Clothing (to be brought to the donation center instead)
• Food scraps (compost)
• Electronics and lithium batteries (to be deposited in drop-off centers)
• Construction materials (at the ecocenter)

The two sorting centers visited by The newspaper

China

Inaugurated in 2019, it has been managed since October 2022 by the VIA Company.

It cost the City of Montreal $53M, which broke the contract with previous operator, Ricova, which also manages the Saint-Michel sorting center and made the headlines for its contaminated paper bales.

In Lachine, since the change of hands, the contamination rate of materials has gone from more than 30% to around 10%, boasts the plant director, Maxime Moisan. Although this rate may seem high, there are still outlets for the materials, he assures.

Here, 80% of the materials are sorted by machines and the rest by workers undergoing professional reintegration. The VIA Company has tripled the number of employees for manual sorting from around ten to around forty per shift.

Terrebonne

Inaugurated in 2007, it belongs to the Tricentris coop, which manages around a quarter of recyclable materials in Quebec in its factories in Terrebonne, Gatineau and Lachute.

That of Terrebonne processes 72,000 tonnes of materials per year from the North Shore of Montreal. Half of the materials are sorted manually and the other half are sorted automatically.

The contamination rate of bales is around 3 to 5%, depending on the materials, estimates the general director of Tricentris, Dany Dumont.

The glass is sent to the Lachute micronization plant where it is transformed into different products sold to five or six different customers.

Around 20% of the material – mainly paper, but also a little metal – is sold to brokers who resell them to recyclers who may be located in Quebec and outside.

The rest is sold to nearby companies like Cascades and Kruger for paper and cardboard, and Soleno for plastic.