Sorting centre in Montreal's Lachine borough has reduced contamination of recyclables

The sorting centre in Montreal's borough of Lachine, which handles 600 tonnes of material daily, is now running under new management after the last company in charge was kicked to the curb.

And so far, it's working better than ever according to the new administration, Société VIA, which says it has reduced contamination by 20 per cent.

But the organization keeps pushing for perfection.

"There are always improvements to be made," said executive director Jean-Sébastien Daigle. "To say that the sorting centre is perfect would be wrong."

Société VIA, which runs other recycling centres in the province, is a non-profit group that promotes the hiring of people with functional limitations.

While about 80 percent of the sorting is done by machines, workers handle the rest, said Maxime Moisan, director of the Lachine plant.

As the tonnes and tonnes of collected recycling comes in, everything from batteries and bricks to rubber tires and other contaminants need to be sorted out. About a quarter of the material brought into the plant needs to be removed and shipped to landfills.

"We have people helping us to improve the quality of the product we have," Moisan said.

Ricova loses contract

In early 2022, Montreal's inspector general, Brigitte Bishop, said Ricova did not pay Montreal its fair share of recycling profits.

She said Ricova had sold recyclable materials to one of its sister companies, Ricova International Inc., which then sold them to outside buyers at a higher price.

In all, her report alleges Ricova withheld more than $1 million it owed the city for recycled materials it sold over a 12-month period.

Ricova challenges the report and has taken the city to court after it banned the company from bidding on public contracts.

Ricova said there wasn't a sufficient market in Quebec for all the recycled volume in the province, particularly because the materials collected at the source are highly contaminated. It said the Lachine sorting centre's equipment wasn't up to the job.

Ricova, based in Brossard, Que., had been operating Montreal's two recycling sorting centres, in Lachine and Saint-Michel, and collecting curbside recycling from two of the city's boroughs. It also has collection contracts with several municipalities in the Montreal area as well.

In June, Montreal barred Ricova from bidding on contracts for the next five years, though that decision did not affect existing contracts with the city.

Then in October, Montreal fired Ricova as manager of the Lachine plant.

Tour of Lachine facility

On Thursday, media were invited by the new management to check out the progress at the Lachine sorting centre. And on that same day, Ricova made an announcement of its own.

Ricova said its contamination rate is two per cent at its Saint-Michel recycling plant, down from 35 per cent when it took over the facility in August 2020. Ricova attributed its $6-million investment in modernizing the facility's optical sorters.

In Lachine, Société VIA said the contamination rate for mixed paper materials has gone from 30 per cent to 10 per cent. That's enough of an improvement to keep the city happy.

"The improvement is very impressive. So we are very satisfied," sad Arnaud Budka, who is responsible for residual materials management for the city. 

Budka said 10 per cent is a contamination rate that clients will accept, and a rate that the city of Montreal, which owns the plant, will accept.

Overall, the city welcomes the improvements at both sorting centres, said Marikym Gaudreault, spokesperson for the city's executive committee.

"Our teams, in collaboration with our partners, have spared no effort to improve the quality of the materials produced by our two sorting centres," Gaudreault said.
 
"Montrealers can be reassured when they take the necessary action to recycle, and we are confident that the situation will continue to improve."

Montreal will continue to take actions aimed at reducing waste at the source, Gaudreault said. The next regulation will be the banning of single-use plastics on March 28.