A sorting center in Laval has been working at a breakneck pace since the ice storm to transform broken tree branches into wood chips that will heat greenhouses and paper mills.
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“We’re in a rush,” says Martin Cloutier, showing the huge piles of building materials, branches and tree trunks received in recent weeks.
Photo Pierre-Paul Poulin
Martin Cloutier, President of Multi Recycling
His company, Multi Recyclage, does business with five ecocentres and more than twenty boroughs and municipalities on the West Island of Montreal.
Mr. Cloutier estimates that the volume he received increased by 40% in the days following the freezing rain storm.
“Just in one day, I received 32 trips from Ahuntsic-Cartierville. I organized with the City because I can’t receive everything that comes from the ice storm all at once,” underlines the entrepreneur.
Crushed and sold
Since the day after the storm, the City has agreed to slow down the pace to allow the company to handle the volume according to its capacities.
The fact remains that in all, the Laval company received 156 shipments of branches weighing two and a half tons each from the island of Montreal.
Photo Pierre-Paul Poulin
After arriving by truck, wood loads are sent to shredders.
Two grinders take care of transforming the wood into chips.
“It goes through a slow grinder that will shred to eight inches in diameter. After that, it falls into another shredder which will shred it according to the final particle size, which is two to four inches,” explains Mr. Cloutier, whose company has been in business for thirty years.
Once crushed, the chips are ready to be sent by truck to customers, greenhouses and paper mills.
Photo Pierre-Paul Poulin
These shredders then reduce the wood to chips, which are then used to heat greenhouses and paper mills.
They will be used as biomass, that is, they will be burned to produce the energy needed to make them work.
Look for outlets
In addition to having to manage the rate of the arrival of the branches with the City, Martin Cloutier had to multiply the calls to find new customers, a question of selling the volume of additional chips.
Currently, the vast majority of production is used to make biomass, but the company is looking for other solutions to recover the wood that arrives at the sorting centre.
And the rush is far from over.
It will still take weeks to finish picking up the branches that have been strewn on the streets since the storm, the City of Montreal said last week.
At least 4,500 branches and 900 trees fell under the weight of the ice storm in Montreal, only according to requests made to 311.
“I expect to receive them for weeks…”, concludes Mr. Cloutier.