OPEN LETTER
With the recent exit of the Metropolitan Community of Montreal for the consignment of bottles from the Société des alcools du Québec (SAQ) and the launch of the citizen movement SAQ Consigne, the Legault government is entering squarely into a debate that has animated Quebec since a twenty years.
We must see this as an opportunity for him to stand out, where previous governments have failed, and to put an end to an environmental aberration that has been going on for far too long. If indeed 87 % bottles from the SAQ are recovered, you should know that recovering does not mean recycling. Above all, you should know that none of the approximately 220 million bottles sold annually by our state-owned company are in fact recycled, remelted, in the form of new glass containers.
Most of the glass recovered by municipal selective collection, our recycling bin, ends its life in our landfills, in one form or another (daily recovery or completely eliminated). It is a fact. The other part, the quantities of which remain to be validated independently, is used for abrasive purposes or cement addition, mainly in street furniture. And this, in initiatives which are mainly supported or financed by the SAQ itself. This allows him to affirm that outlets exist for the glass that comes out of our recycling bins, to tell us that ultimately, nothing needs to be changed.
Even if glass is a contaminant for other recyclable materials and the latest recycling crisis has demonstrated the limits of its effectiveness, municipal selective collection remains advantageous for certain producers, including the SAQ. There is actually no way to measure its real environmental performance, let alone its carbon footprint. Furthermore, there is no
tracking mechanism, no traceability, once the recyclable materials are collected at the curb. In addition, the management and accountability resulting from this recovery system are the responsibility of the municipalities.
By opposing the introduction of deposits on its products, the SAQ is acting against the public interest, the environment and the economy. Implemented in the right way, a deposit system on bottles of wine and spirits would cost the State nothing. Above all, it would allow one of the largest glass foundries, right here in Quebec, to stop importing its raw materials from American provinces or states where there is a deposit on these containers; the quality of the glass recovered by the deposit allowing its recasting. Markets for glass recycling therefore exist in Quebec, but our current recovery system is incapable of supplying them with quality raw materials, which is in itself against all logic, and a huge waste of money.
and resources.
The objective of a deposit on SAQ bottles is of course to rework this material to make other glass containers. However, for the tens of millions of liters of wine imported in bulk and bottled here, reusable bottles could be considered, which, once again, only a deposit system allows.
It is imperative to review and improve our recovery methods, in particular by introducing a deposit on bottles of wine and spirits sold by our Quebec liquor company. We must stop putting them in opposition, but rather focus on their complementarities. Above all, we must put an end to the sterile and unproductive debates that this issue provokes. The status quo is no longer an option.
Signatories:
- Emergency Water
- YOUTH ENVIRONMENT
- Equiterre
- David Suzuki Foundation
- Fondation Rivières
- Quebec common front for ecological waste management
- Greenpeace
- Nature Quebec
- Grouping of eco-neighborhoods
- National grouping of regional environmental councils of Quebec
- Quebec network of environmental groups
- Society for Nature and Parks (SNAP Quebec)
The Fondation Rivières supports this open letter since sand, a raw material in the manufacture of glass, is massively extracted from beaches to supply this industry. In addition, reducing the volume of glass sent to landfill at source can reduce the impacts of technical landfill sites on the territory's waterways and bodies of water.
