The president of the Bluewater Recycling Association says it's challenging to keep up with the changing trends in shopping habits.
One example is the size of cardboard they deal with.
President Francis Veilleux explains they use screens to separate cardboard from the rest of the material. However, the cardboard they get today is much smaller than they used to get because so many people now shop online and receive parcels for one item, rather than having several items in one larger box.
Veilleux says they've recently added two smaller screens to catch the smaller pieces of cardboard, and also use optical sorters.
Veilleux says plastic is another material that has gone through some changes in the last 20 years. In the 90s, consumers preferred super packs of products that would last three months. But now the preference is for things like yogurt in individual size cups, so while the material might remain the same -- the size fluctuates and they have to keep up with the changes.
"Rather than go to your local store to buy the item that you're looking for, where they buy it in bulk, you'll buy it online and it'll come in a smaller box, containing one item. So what happens is when we collect the material, cardboard in this particular case, the box itself is a lot smaller than it used to be," says Veilleux. "We just went through an upgrade before Christmas, in the last couple of weeks of November, and we replaced a couple of pieces of equipment to try to combat that and maintain our effectiveness in recycling materials."
