A local company wants to establish itself as a national reference for recovering polystyrene, also called Styrofoam, which can currently only be recycled in sorting centers in Quebec.

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Polystyrene is a Class 6 plastic that cannot be recovered, but Éco-captation wants to recycle it.

“We recycle more than one ton per day, and our capacity is about one ton per hour, so we can process 8000 tons per year. Which makes us probably the largest polystyrene sorting center in North America,” explains Gil Fein, Vice President of Éco-Captation.

Thanks to the granules of this recyclable material, the company is able to manufacture street furniture.

The local company can also turn it into a concrete additive used to increase its resistance to freezing and thawing.

“Currently, it is used to make underground gutters for Hydro-Quebec and Hydro-Ontario,” he says.

Éco-captation wishes to establish itself as a model across Canada.

“The goal is to have at least one plant like this per county within 5 to 10 years and to recover all the polystyrene possible,” the vice president said.

According to its vice president, this opportunity can be repeated for other companies.

“We take one step at a time and hopefully on our part this step will encourage other companies to try to recycle orphaned products,” he said.

Watch the full report in the video above.