Quebec | More than 175,000 tons of electronic products recycled in 10 years

(Montreal) More than 175,000 tons: this is the amount of waste recycled by the Association for the Recycling of Electronic Products of Quebec (ARPE-Quebec) in a decade, announced its spokesperson, science popularizer Martin Carli , on the occasion of the organization’s 10th anniversary and World Environment Day.

“If we filled with all these electronic products, semi-trailer trucks, we would have a line of 500 km”, he illustrated.

Just in the last year, ARPE-Québec received more than 17,800 tonnes. It should be noted that this probably represents a greater number of aircraft than the annual average, as these are smaller and lighter than 10 years ago.

But work still needs to be done, he said, to ensure that all those old computers, phones and other televisions have a second life, while many of them are gathering dust in a basement.

Indeed, a Léger survey indicated a year ago that 65% of Quebecers still kept obsolete devices in their homes.

Martin Carli will be present on the occasion of the special collection organized Sunday in front of the offices of ARPE-Québec, at 5005 boulevard de Lapinière, in Brossard.

To preserve the environment

“You should not put these devices on the side of the street, because it can be found anywhere, explained Mr. Carli. But we shouldn’t either have the illusion that in the recycling bin it’s going to end up in a recycling process because no, that’s not what’s going to happen. »

To get rid of your old electronic products, you have to drop them off at one of the 1,000 ARPA-Quebec collection points that comb the province. These are listed on the organization’s website.

This approach creates several benefits for the environment, pointed out Mr. Carli. First, it makes it possible to “recover in these devices the resources that are still perfectly useful”, such as gold which is used for its excellent conduction of electricity and the fact that it does not corrode. . These materials “have already been extracted from the ground, so if we recover them in the devices, well, we reduce the pressure on mining”.

In addition, certain toxic compounds such as mercury or lead can cause damage if released into the environment, “so it’s important to dispose of these substances in the right way”.