Visit of the Environment Complex Complex | In the footsteps of our waste

(Terrebonne) What happens to the content of our bins after the passage of the garbage truck? In Greater Montreal, almost 50 % of waste leads to the Environment Complex Connexions complex in Terrebonne. How do you deal with residual materials? For more than 30 years, the site has organized visits to schools and the population. Experience has recently been redesigned. Our journalist accompanied a third year class there.

Close-up on “3RV-e”

“Do some of you have an idea of ​​what is you going to visit together?” André Chulak barely finished his question than a dozen hands get up. “The recycling center,” answers one. “The landfill site,” adds another. In the minutes that follow, the third year students of the Bernard-Corbin school in Terrebonne call almost all the installations of the vast site. The director of communications and relations with the environment at Environment Connexions is impressed. But before going to the field, he wants to tell them about the 3RV-E. Young people are still impressing it. They know this principle of management of residual materials: reduce, reuse, recycle, value and eliminate. Will they be able to take up the challenges installed in this new immersive room, created in collaboration with museologists and cégépians of the Montmorency college? One of the tasks is, for example, to sort objects in the different bins. “Where are chicken bones?” “In the compost”, replies a student by depositing the image representing the remains of the table in a slit of the module. A green light lights up. It is successful!

Control cure

Students get on the bus. First judgment: control cure, where all trucks are weighed. The interior of each of them is also scrutinized by radars to ensure that they do not transport hazardous waste, says André Chulak. Why is it important? “Because later, it may become a large park, a golf course, a nursery. There are lots of things that we will be able to do with the field, but there must not be any waste hazardous for the environment. »»

The recycling center

Some students know the second stop since they have already come to it with their parents. “The recycling center is our ecocentre,” sums up André Chulak. The tires raised here will become soccer terrain or arena carpets; The styromousse will be handed over to a company that will transform it into ping-pong tables or park benches. “Each year, it is at least 6000 to 7000 tonnes of waste that we are going to be reused, recycling or enhancing,” he says.

The landfill site

Students go down from the bus and walk … on waste. However, nothing seems to be. On this plot of land where waste was buried 30 years ago, we are at leagues from what we imagine when you think of a landfill site. “It’s as if we were in a large park,” observes André Chulak. Nearby, on the other hand, 600 trucks per day dump their content. “We will crush the waste and bury it. We will make sure that the waste will not disturb, “said our guide earlier using a model on which we see in particular the thick layer of clay in the soil which serves as a natural barrier between waste and groundwater. On the landfill site, the environmental teams will, among other things, recover the liquid flowing from waste and treat this water in large pools to make it cleaner. The gases will also be recovered to make energy. But “to improve the environment even more, you have to do less waste,” recalls André Chulak.

The compost

“It smells like the farm,” says a student. Since we have been circulating on the site, it is the first time that we have perceived unpleasant odors. We roll next to dozens of heaps of organic matter decomposing. These Andans will be returned for about 10 weeks until it becomes compost. “There is a soccer ball,” says a boy. “And full of plastic,” says another. For what ? Their request André Chulak. “Because there are people who don’t pay attention,” replies a youngster. Students note why it is important to deposit each object in the right tank. This facilitates the task of workers who otherwise have to withdraw these debris.

The factory

Last stop of the exit: the renewable natural gas production plant. “The biogas that occurs every second in the landfill will not be found in the air. There are more than 700 biogas sensor wells, “explains André Chulak, comparing everything to vacuum cleaners. Once collected, gas is transported to the factory where it will be transformed into energy. The factory could meet the energy needs of 27,000 houses, underlines our guide.

What do the students hold their visit?