When saving the planet can be hard

A little background

Several years ago a friend informed me that there was no recycling program for glass in Quebec. This really floored me! Knowing that a glass bottle took approximately four thousand years to decompose naturally, I had been recycling them as long as I had been in Quebec. Where, I wondered, had the bottles gone if not to recycling?

Then somebody explained to me that in Quebec it was cost prohibitive to recycle glass. There just wasn’t a big enough market for it.

Basically all of the bottles that people recycled ended up in Encombrant(which translates loosely to Bulky). The recycling centers had these containers for everything that wasn’t recyclable: rugs, couches, broken plastic Santa statues, mixed material items, etc. Afterward, a machine, that I could only imagine as terrifying, crushed the contents into a granulated version of rugs, couches, etc. Where the powder went after that was anyone’s guess. Honestly, I think it just ended up back in the garbage dumps…just as a smaller trash.

My goodness! How many years of powdered glass and plastic Santas were layered in our landfills?

The Issue Hits Closer to Home

The spa where I work has a wonderful wine and champagne list. As the guests are there to pamper themselves, that often involves a glass or two of something from the list; with a meal or just for wandering around. Because the spa can accomodate up to 400 guests, this can add up to a lot of empty bottles! Knowing what I knew about the lack of glass recycling made it frustrating to see just how many would pile up on any given day.

Progress

Fast forward 6 years and things have changed. A company called 2M has taken on the task of recycling Quebec’s glass. They receive subsidies from the government and private businesses. All you have to do is drop your bottles into one of the many containers they have placed in towns all over the province.

This means that things have changed at work too. With a little help from various co-workers, I am now the “Chief Bottle Recycler”(a title I gave myself) for the spa. The restaurant and lounge staff put the empty bottles in boxes in a storage space. From there one of the maintenance guys moves them to a spot away from the main spa until I can collect them. Sometimes, I even leave my car unlocked and they will pile them into my trunk. But mostly I go early and grab them before work and, subsequently, take them after work to the container.

Doing My Part

I stopped counting a while ago, but on average I recycle about 100 bottles a week. During the holidays it was at least double that. That means I have recycled about 5000 bottles. That number makes me feel like I am helping the planet in some little way.

There are a few downsides: like when the bottle isn’t empty and there is splashback when I toss it into the container. That is just a horribly fermented mess right into my face! Or when my timing is off and I end up driving around for a few days with dozens of bottles clinking in my trunk. But the very worst is during the warms days when there are so many bottles that I have to use the backseat as well as the trunk. When I get into my car at the end of the day it smells like a bar…and not in a fun way.

Yet despite these small inconveniences, I will continue to recycle the bottles as long as I work at the spa. Because there are a lot more people out there struggling even harder than I am to make the world a better place. This is one concrete action that I can take to help a planet that has given me so much.

Hard work and inconveniences be damned…the earth deserves our efforts.