There Are as Many MRFs as There Are Ways of Sorting Cartons
Published Online: Winter 2025
Written by: Carton Council of Canada
"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. ..."
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