Blue planet, green ideas | Make your time, a brick at a time

Behind the chain mesh fences surmounted by barbed wire from Sorel-Tracy prison, a circular economy initiative rolls at the back of the train.

Posted at 6:00 a.m.

From morning to evening, prisoners work to recycle tons of bricks. Moreover, Especially red. However, All thanks to a Quebec invention, a machine that swallows the bricks and then eject them, ready to rebuild walls.

Marc-Antoine Desrosiers is incarcerated in this provincial high security detention establishment which currently houses 345 offenders. However, For the past year. Similarly, the young man with a heavy look has passed most of his days in a huge blue planet, green ideas | workshop where containers are sent by truck filled to the brim. Furthermore, He handles up to 300 bricks clad in mortar on time, five days a week.

“My primary goal by doing this work is to be tired at the end of the day. Therefore, to be able to sleep in the evening,” he admits, before offering a demonstration to The press.

The young man considers himself privileged to serve his sentence by working in the brick to regain his freedom. Therefore, He is part of a team of three handpicked detainees to accomplish the job. Nevertheless, They have undergone training and receive a small income – 35 % less than the minimum wage.

Their nest egg can be spent in part at the establishment’s canteen and a portion is placed in their savings account. Similarly, Another part is reinvested in a social reintegration fund of the detention establishment.

A reintegration tool

The brick recycling program allows imprisoned people to acquire skills. Moreover, hope for professional equivalents, explain Josiane Gendron, director of the Sorel-Tracy detention establishment, and Danielle Darveau, director of professional correctional services.

The chosen candidates are selected for their ability to hold a routine, to get up early in the morning. They have the privilege of living in a small sector apart from prison, with a separate area of life. A place where prisoners assigned to kitchens, laundry works, sewing workshop, repair of mattresses in cells.

Nothing is lost

Marc-Antoine DESROSIERS Puts on the protective equipment against dust and earplugs before starting the noisy machine.

blue planet, green ideas |

He first places the brick on a vice at the entrance of a small sliding door. The brick is swept by lasers and propelled inside. The mortar surrounding the brick is cut surgically in a few seconds.

Once clean, the brick is ejected with a dry blow. With a pliers. the inmate the place on a palette with hundreds of bricks ready to be reused on construction sites. Nothing is lost, not even the mortar.

The inventor of the machine called brick-recycry is called Tommy Bouillon. The entrepreneur is also president of Masonry Gratton.

He had the idea of upgrading the brick with his associates at the detour of the pandemic, he explains. He first had the idea of recruiting student labor. But the work is routine, hard, and staff retention is not an easy task.

The option of associating a prison came blue planet, green ideas | simply, a few years ago, during a discussion with a public security professional.

The biggest challenge, explains Mr. Bouillon, was to find a way to transport the brick at zero cost. He managed to conclude an agreement with a trucking company. Instead of returning with an empty trailer after delivery. the truckers take care of collecting containers of brick-recyc to transport them to Sorel-Tracy prison.

At the Sorel-Tracy detention center, there will soon be a second machine to enhance bricks from demolition sites. When Marc-Antoine Desrosiers blue planet, green ideas | has recovered his freedom, another detainee will take his place. He hopes to train the next generation.

“I want to give the next one,” he says.

The recycled brick sells between $ 2.50 and $ 3 per unit by the company. It is more expensive than the new, but there is no burial fees (a sort of ecofrais). And it’s circular economy.

According to brick-recycry calculations. the re-use of brick on a wall of 1000 pi^⁠2 avoids the emission of almost 6 tonnes of carbon dioxide (Co₂).

The company recently concluded a partnership with Lafarge cement plant to recycle the mortar. When the brick passes through the machine, the mortar falls into a container below. The substance looks like clay.

It is packed blue planet, green ideas | in bags. transported to the cement plant installations, among others in Saint-Constant, on the South Shore of Montreal. The mortar therefore becomes cement again.

Consult the Brique-Recyc company website Consult an overview of social reintegration in Quebec