The City of Lachine, a borough within the city of Montreal on the Island of Montreal, has a new state-of-the art recycling facility. The centre, built at a cost of $50M, will process 100,000 tonnes of material per year.
Some 80 trucks a day will arrive at the centre every day. The centre will be able to process 100,000 tonnes of recycled materials per year — 58 per cent of the recyclable material collected in the city.
Lachine Mayor Maja Vodanovic sees the opening of a recycling plant in Lachine as one important element in a much larger plan — the creation of what is called a circular economy.
The goal of a circular economy, also referred to as circularity, is to eliminate waste by creating a closed loop. Material waste is reused, refurbished, repaired or repurposed. The circular template differs from the linear purchase-and-discard practice. The circular process not only reduces waste, it reduces the number of road trips required to cart waste to another location.
The plant will use automated machinery to separate paper, cardboard and plastic. A staff of 25 workers are required to operate the facility.
In the new year, glass recycling equipment will be added to the operations at the facility at a cost of $2.5 million.
