Maureen Duplain has a whole network of tab collectors made up of people from all over the Quebec region. Volunteer from several organizations, including the Lions club Lions in Charlesburg and the Patro Roc-Amadour, she puts several of her colleagues to use.
She does it first and above all for people who require a wheelchair. But when she has no request in this sense, which has been the case for more than two years, she has hosted the tabs for the Roc-Amadour patro.
“I like to volunteer, I feel useful,” says Duplain.
By and for young people
The funds raised go at leisure more and teenagers, adapted leisure services that welcome adolescents and adults in the Quebec region with an intellectual disability or an autism spectrum disorder.
Ms. Duplain collects tabs for young people, but also with them, since she implies them in the collection. They feel valued and proud to contribute, she said.
“They learn patience, then they learn that if they want something, you have to work to have it.”
— Maureen Duplain, volunteer at the Roc-Amadour patro
Each tongue taken individually does not represent much, but accumulated in large quantities, they provide precious dollars to the person or the body that amasses them.
These small objects take their value once sold to a foundry or a metal recycling company.
The Roc-Amadour Patro team ensures that the profits are maximizing. “We are waiting for the price of aluminum to be as high as possible,” says Bernard Bossé, main receptionist of the community center located in Limoilou.
Last year, the initiative made it possible to obtain $ 1,600 just before the holiday season.
Espadrilles for children
Several other similar initiatives exist across Quebec. In Bas-Saint-Laurent, the “Movement A pin at the same time please” amasses the tabs to finance “the purchase of sneakers for children with worn shoes”.
Johanne Marcotte is the instigator. At each school year, she selects one or more schools in the region, which will mobilize students and parents throughout the year.
“Ambassadors” from everywhere combine with the cause, from Rivière-du-Loup to Charlevoix, on the other side of the river. Merchants also join the adventure by becoming deposit points.
More than 1000 pounds of tabs have raised nearly $ 700. With these funds, she delivered a few weeks ago 14 pairs of sneakers to children from the Vents-et-Marées school in Rivière-Oelle.
“Children really get to my heart, then helpless children, there are everywhere.”
— Johanne Marcotte, instigator of the movement a pin at once please
The donation of espadrilles was not chosen at random. In addition to the happiness that children can feel to wear new shoes, Ms. Marcotte wants to encourage them to play sports.
She hopes to be able to launch the initiative in Mauricie, where she lives now, while continuing her commitment to Kamouraska. In both cases, his project faces a challenge, to find places to store the tabs while waiting to sell them. It currently assesses its options in anticipation of the fall.
Remove them or leave them?
The Quebec Association for Drinking Containers (AQRCB), an organization behind Consignaction, manages the instructions in Quebec. The sale of raw materials is one of its sources of financing, as is a contribution from producers, which can be transferred to consumers. Removing the tab is a loss of income for the AQRCB.
“If we have an imbalance in the system, the variable that we must adjust, this is the contribution that producers pay to market the containers,” says Jean-François Lefort, vice-president of corporate affairs of the AQRCB.
“The idea is to keep the lowest costs and have a most effective system to recover as many containers as possible.”
— Jean-François Lefort, Vice-President Corporate Affairs of the AQRCB
“It is important to ensure the recycling of containers that the tongue is part of it. But we know that there are organizations that raise funds with that, “he added, while stressing that these initiatives are all marginal.
Options in the region
In Sherbrooke, it is possible to go and wear your aluminum cans tabs to the association of cerebrovascular and traumatized cranial accidents of Estrie (act).
In collaboration with the CIUSSS de l’Estrie, the act offers occupational workshops for people with physical disabilities and severe employment constraints. These individuals collect and sort the tabs of aluminum cans as well as used keys.
The profits collected by the sale of these products are exclusively invested in the financing of services to volunteer workers, such as activities.
The offices are located at 759, rue Woodward in Sherbrooke, and are open from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday to Friday. An external fall recovers the donations for the weekend.
The act also harvests stamps, which are cut off from the envelopes and given to an organism that collects them.
With Maïté Paradis