Sherbrooke Record e-Edition

Regional Écocentre offers free construction materials to reduce waste

By Ruby Pratka Local Journalism Initiative

The MRC Brome-missisquoi is encouraging home repairers, furniture makers, bricoleurs and new homebuyers to turn to an unusual resource for wood, furniture and used outdoor equipment – the recycling centre.

The Cowansville Écocentre has been open since 2020. Since August 2022, part of the facility has been set aside to receive wood, construction residue and other heavy items such as sports equipment. Residents can browse the selection and take home anything that interests them, for free. Welcome to the espace de réemploi, or the reuse space.

The MRC Brome-missisquoi recently launched a new social media campaign to raise awareness of the facility’s existence. “We had been talking about it in the past, but not everyone knew what it was for,” said Jade Lacoursière, waste management advisor at the MRC. She added that the Haute-yamaska region has had a similar facility for the past few years, and the Melbourne Écocentre in the Val-saint-françois region opened theirs in 2022.

“Citizens bring a lot of different things to the Écocentre, including construction materials,” she said. “People can either get rid of [construction materials] through bulk trash, if their town offers that service, or bring them here, but there’s not a lot of value-adding that we can do with them once they get here.”

Lacoursière said as much as 40 per cent of waste brought to the Écocentre is construction waste or bulk trash. “We saw that material coming through and we noticed that some of it was still good – the kind of stuff a craftsperson would potentially use,” she said. “People were bringing in things that still had potential, the kind of things that we would see and say, ‘Hey, I could sand that and put it in my kitchen!’”

She observed that thrift stores and charities often don’t have room for larger items, and the Écocentre “wanted to make sure these pieces got a second life.”

In the few months that the space has been open, Lacoursière said they have received a lot of doors and windows, lumber and wood offcuts, and large items of sports equipment. She encouraged people working on construction or home improvement projects to browse the space with their projects in mind before going to the local home store, especially in light of construction costs. “You can find unique pieces made from good wood that you might not find in a thrift store,” she said, adding that the centre had recycled 26 tons of material in its first four months – “the equivalent of 1300 wooden doors.”

Bulk waste “is not unique to the MRC – it’s a provincewide problem, and we need to do our part to address it,” Lacoursière said. “We want reuse to become a reflex for people. By offering [bulk construction materials and furniture] to people for free, we keep it out of the landfill and we give a second life to some very beautiful material.”

BROMECOUNTYNEWS

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2023-02-07T08:00:00.0000000Z

2023-02-07T08:00:00.0000000Z

https://sherbrookerecord.pressreader.com/article/281767043378950

Alberta Newspaper Group