Near the eastern tip of the island, a dump truck backs into Montreal’s newest recycling sorting centre and unloads reams of paper, cardboard, plastic, glass, tins — and anything else people have put in their blue bins.
From there, the mass of material is loaded onto conveyor belts, then through a series of optical sorters that use sensors, magnets and blowers to separate the items by type.
Nearly the entire process is automated — only about 20 people help with sorting the material, said Carl D’Astous, director of special projects with Matrec-GFL, which built and operates the facility.
The centre, billed as one of the most technologically advanced in North America, was opened at the start of 2025.
Recyclables picked up in the west side of Montreal will still go to the sorting centre in Lachine.
Recycling is changing in Quebec, starting with what you can put in the blue bin — and this new high-tech sorting centre in Montreal’s east end. But hurdles remain in getting more of the province’s recyclable materials actually recycled.
The new facility, in an industrial section of Montréal-Est, is designed to process up to 20 per cent of the province’s total curbside collection.
It is also intended to produce quality bales of paper, plastic and other materials that will be recycled in Quebec or nearby in Canada or the United States.
In the past, paper bales mixed with plastic, old clothes and pieces of metal were shipped to India and elsewhere, where much of the material ended up in landfills.
As recently as 2021, nearly 40 per cent of recyclables at sorting centres were shipped outside the province.
Onus on producers
The centre in Montréal-Est is part of a broader shift in how Quebec’s beleaguered recycling system is managed.
As of Jan. 1, the collection, sorting and sale of recyclable material is now managed by Éco Entreprises Québec (EEQ), a non-profit representing producers.
The new centre in Montréal-Est was designed to process up to 20 per cent of Quebec’s total curbside pick up.
The change was meant to put the onus on the companies that make containers and packaging, said Environment Minister Benoit Charette.
“Before the government was responsible for the regulation, it was also responsible for the application of the regulation. Now it’s the producers that have that responsibility,” said Charette.
Under the new system, nearly all packaging and containers are permitted in your blue bin — with only three exceptions: aerosol cans, polystyrene packaging and compostable bags.
Maryse Vermette, the head of EEQ, acknowledged that doesn’t mean everything at the sorting centre will be recycled, stressing that there will be a “transitional” period.
“It is going to be challenging,” she said.
For instance, the material known as “flexible plastic,” which includes things like chip bags and ziplock bags, remains complicated to recycle and is a “challenge everywhere in North America, even in Europe,” she said.
EEQ is exploring the possibility of converting these difficult to recycle plastics into energy through a chemical process, Vermette said.
She said they had reached an agreement with a local company to use glass in construction materials. Previously, much of Montreal’s glass ended up in landfills.
Quebec’s change brings it in line with several other provinces, including Ontario and British Columbia, said Karen Wirsig, plastics program manager at the advocacy group Environmental Defence.
The idea is that producers will be compelled to transition toward easier to recycle material to avoid paying a fee for items that are more expensive or difficult to recycle, Wirsig said.
“In general, metal, paper, glass are much more recyclable and recycled in practise, but for plastics, this is going to present a challenge for these companies,” she said.
Wirsig cautioned that some of the proposals to deal with plastic — in some cases, by burning it — amount to a pricey form of greenwashing, with its own environmental concerns.
“It’s a very expensive process,” she said. “Frankly, for plastics, boosting recycling in the short term is not on the table, I think.”
Checks and balances
Overall, the new facility represents a positive step for recycling in Quebec, said Karel Ménard, a longtime environmental activist and the head of the Quebec Coalition for Ecological Waste Management.
In an ideal world, people would sort their recyclables at home and they would be sent separately to be recycled, he said.
But in his view, the new facility is the next best thing, because the state-of-the-art sorting process will lead to less contamination.
“The value of the material will be higher … so it will help recyclable material to be actually recycled,” he said.
EEQ is planning to expand recycling services to communities across Quebec, build more facilities like the one in Montréal-Est and add new equipment to others, such as the sorting centre in Lachine, Vermette said.
EEQ is also mandated to provide the Quebec government with regular updates to determine whether the system is working. An EEQ spokesperson said Monday it was too soon to provide a breakdown of where recyclable material was being sent now, given that it’s only been five weeks since the organization took over.
Myra Hira, an environmental studies professor at Queen’s University, stressed that a reduction in packaging — not improved recycling — should be the ultimate goal.
“The key here is to focus less on recycling and more on product and packaging design to reduce the amount of waste that each produces in the first place,” she wrote in an email, adding that the government should look at ways to compel “companies to reduce packaging, and eco-design products so that they last longer and have a reduced environmental footprint.”
