Why 2 major glass recyclers want Quebec to stop Consignaction from building its own plant

Tensions between Consigne Action and two major players in Quebec's recycling industry are rising. There's plenty of capacity in the system already, so to have an additional player, obviously it will take the glasses from us and jeopardize our operation. Two of Quebec's largest bottle and glass processing plants are asking the province to stop Consigne Action's efforts to build its own plant. Consigne Action runs Quebec's bottle deposit refund system, and it plans to expand operations to include more glass containers in March 2027. Producers are worried over 500 workers in the Montérégie, Mauricie and other regions could have their jobs on the line if Consigne Action starts competing with them for its own business. Groupe Belmar has been processing glass containers retrieved from blue bins for decades, with their facility able to take on roughly 180,000 tons of glass. Consignation's incoming plant in Sorel-Tracy would absorb a majority of refundable glass containers across Quebec to meet government-set targets. And if you factor in the fact that more glass containers will be accepted at Consignation locations after their expansions, producers banking on glass containers coming from blue bins alone say they will have a much smaller volume. Initially, we were thinking that we were going to get a portion of that glass with the other players that are in the field. But unfortunately, if they build the plant, they will take the majority of the glass. As it stands, Consignation doesn't have to collaborate with existing businesses. The Environment Ministry is working to tighten those regulations, but it's not clear if or when they'll go through. The only way forward was with this new facility because we have to meet our obligations. Existing processing plants and Consignation disagree on a number of issues, including capacity and technology. Groupe Belmar says they're already equipped to handle Quebec's needs. For an organization to duplicate what's already in place, we already have the capacity to process the glass that is available in Quebec and much more. So for us, this is a big surprise. Lefort says existing processing plants will still be able to process glass from blue bins. We met with him and his team and we went through the details and we said, you know, we want there to be no impact on your business. Did he have aspirations to treat the volume in the deposit return system? Probably. Does he get to meet those aspirations with our new facility? No. Still, Fortin says they're ready and able to take on more.