A clever new movement wants Quebeckers to bring their empty wine bottles to their SAQ branch in an aim to pressure the Crown Corporation into recycling them. Spearheaded by new lobby group “SAQ Consigne”, the initiative aims to end the problem of glass recycling in Quebec, where at the moment just 14% of glass is recycled.
SAQ Consigne hopes that this new pressure tactic will force the SAQ and the Quebec government to conduct a serious evaluation of how glass is recycled across the province. Eventually, they also want the SAQ to implement a deposit system for wine bottles, like other provinces have.
At the moment, much of the glass recycled by Quebeckers ends up thrown into recycling trucks, where it often breaks, which make it very difficult to recycle. The broken glass contaminates other recyclable material as well. Much of what is recycled by Quebeckers thus becomes irrecoverable and ends up in landfills.
As much as half of the glass placed in recycle bins by Quebeckers is thought to come from wine and liquor bottles purchased at the SAQ. If these bottles were instead brought back to the source to be reused or recycled, there would be significantly less waste and more savings across the board, the lobby group says.
The glass contamination problem in Quebec’s recycling system is so bad, in fact, that Montreal’s own glass recycling factory in Pointe-Saint-Charles, the Owens-Illinois, has to IMPORT its glass supply from Ontario. SAQ Consigne believes if the SAQ implemented a bottle return system for wine bottles, that would solve many of these systemic problems with glass recycling.
Will you bring your bottles back to the SAQ next time to participate in this movement? Let us know in the Facebook comments!