Commentary

The cat is out of the bag!

Advertising on recovering’ waste material has been invasive in Quebec in recent years. The chorus “We Recover in Quebec” and its well orchestrated echoes have invaded our living rooms several times during prime time. Most Quebecers, even without advertising, have proven themselves conscientious recyclers: Every year, 800,000 tons of glasses, paper, plastic, and cardboard take the path to the recycling bin every year. Conscientious citizens have come to accept the idea that recovery meant recycling.

And now China is intervening. We were exporting about 350,000 tonnes of our recovered paper,-plastic, and-cardboard to China to be recycled there. But they don’t want it anymore, because they want to minimize the importation of "foreign waste". Previously, Chinese industry accepted lower quality sorting of recovered materials. We were told that we export this "quality" because that's what the Chinese wanted. It may be more because it's all we had to offer.

What are we going to do with this refusal by the Chinese? We could bury it, which would be scandalous, socially, economically and ecologically. Maybe we could store it? The Olympic stadium would not even be big enough! In addition, we probably have no more equipment than the Chinese to separate this "quality".

There is at least one solution: Change the collection method. Don’t mix everything with the subsequent obligation to untangle everything. In particular, glass should be removed from recovery bins. Cascades has stated that it was ready to use all recovered paper in Quebec provided it was free of glass. Glass manufacturers want clean local glass at all costs. It is even, they say, a condition of survival for their companies. Finally, Quebec plastic packaging contractors disappeared one after the other because of poorly sorted materials. Specifically, contamination by broken glass broke the machines and prevented any possibility of profitability.

Recovery does not mean recycling. But the two are inseparable. To recover without recycling is to work for nothing. It's spending for nothing. Effective logistics should be put in place for the management of the recovered material to allow it to be recycled here for our greatest collective wealth and for an ecological impact that isn’t just minimal but advantageous.

MICHELINE JEANSON, MARIETTE BOMBARDIER, DIANE DESCHESNES, MARIELLE DUBE, LAURIER BUSQUE, VIATOR H. BLAIS, GASTON MICHAUD, JEAN-CLAUDE THIBAULT (FROM THE COMITÉ OPÉRATION VERRE-VERT).