There Are as Many MRFs as There Are Ways of Sorting Cartons

Each year, CCC Managing Director Isabelle Faucher visits a number of material recovery facilities (MRFs), those indispensable actors in the recycling value chain. These visits are arranged in conjunction with trips she takes across the country for meetings and conferences, and even her own vacation time. In this way, over the past five years, Isabelle has travelled on some fifty occasions to facilities implementing exemplary practices in carton processing, and some others that were dealing with certain challenges.

These visits highlight the fact that every facility is unique, and the best way for it to process cartons is the one that best corresponds to its reality.

In 2025, our Managing Director’s travels saw her mainly on the road in Québec. We are pleased to spotlight the following five Québec MRFs that sort cartons separately into dedicated bales, each in their own way, rather than baling them with other fibre materials. Positive sorting is the way to go to maximize recovery of the long virgin fibres in cartons or ensure they can be fully recycled into building materials, and to expand the range of end markets. Québec has 21 MRFs that process materials from residential collection programs. According to our information, there are now 16 of them sorting cartons separately.

Lachine, Montréal: A return to positive sorting for cartons

• New facility inaugurated in 2019, owned by the City of Montréal and operated by Société VIA.
• Cartons sorted primarily by optical sorter.
• Monthly output of approximately 85 tonnes of cartons.
• Highlight: Separate sorting of cartons had been implemented when the facility opened in 2019, but had to be interrupted because of certain challenges. Cartons were then baled with other fibre materials, until Société VIA addressed the challenges and relaunched separate sorting.

Isabelle Faucher stands in front of carton bales with Marc-André Lavoie of Société VIA, at the Lachine MRF in Montréal. Photo: CCC.

Grande-Rivière, Gaspésie: A first of its kind loop sorting system

• Facility upgraded in 2023, owned and operated by the Régie intermunicipale de traitement des matières résiduelles de la Gaspésie.
• Cartons sorted primarily by optical sorter.
• Monthly output of approximately four tonnes of cartons.
• Highlight: Today, this MRF is mostly automated thanks to a looped conveyor around an optical sorter. It is the only one in Québec equipped with this system, which is especially well suited to smaller-volume facilities. Each loop consists of four passes through the optical sorter. A different group of materials, including cartons, is outputted at each pass.

With each pass through the optical sorter in the modestly sized MRF in Grande-Rivière, a different group of materials is outputted, including cartons. Photo: CCC.

Roberval, Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean: Machine-human collaboration for carton sorting

• Facility upgraded in 2025, owned and operated by the Régie des matières résiduelles du Lac-Saint-Jean.
• Cartons sorted primarily by optical sorter and manually.
• Monthly output of approximately eight tonnes of cartons.
• Highlight: One of this facility’s new optical sorters (there are now six of them) is dedicated to cartons and boxboard; manual sorters farther down the line then separate the two. Some aseptic containers are also recovered by an eddy current separator, which outputs materials containing aluminum.

Isabelle Faucher beside the new optical sorter at the Roberval MRF, which outputs cartons and boxboard. Photo: CCC.

City of Saguenay, Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean: Upgrades in line with the social economy

• Facility upgraded in 2025, owned by the City of Saguenay and operated by Société VIA.
• Fully manual sorting of cartons.
• Monthly output of approximately 20 tonnes of cartons.
• Highlight: Although this MRF has upgraded to state-of-the-art equipment (including five optical sorters, one cardboard separator, two ballistic separators, etc.), it still relies on 40 or so employees, half of whom are individuals with functional limitations, in keeping with the commitment to inclusivity adopted by Société VIA as a social-economy enterprise. One of these workers is assigned to recover cartons at the end of the line, and other sorters also recover them at various locations along the conveyors.

At the end-of-line manual station, one of the workers at the City of Saguenay MRF, a social-economy enterprise, is assigned to recover cartons. Photo: CCC.

Granby, Estrie: A robot unique in Québec

• Facility upgraded in 2019, owned and operated by Enviro Connexions.
• Cartons sorted primarily by robot.
• Monthly output of approximately 22 tonnes of cartons.
• Highlight: This facility is the only one in Québec that uses a robot to sort cartons. A second robot handles HDPE plastic. Each unit is equipped with a dedicated camera and functions autonomously. Cartons missed by the robot are recovered by manual sorters at the end of the line.

Video of the robot carton sorter in action at the Granby MRF. Video: CCC.