Bottle deposit machines are being phased out from Quebec grocery stores. Here's why

The years where you could feast your drink containers into a political machine at a foodstuff store in Quebec and get your money back are coming to an end.

The machines, which are owned and operated by Consignaction, are being phased out in a bid to modernize the province's deposit-refund system.

Jean-François Lefort, Consignaction's vice-president of strategy, said the bottle and can deposit machines inside grocery stores are only being removed as specialized sorting centres open nearby.

But not everyone is on board with the changes.

"It doesn't make sense," said Montrealer Marc-André Bahl, standing outside a Metro grocery store in the city's Ville-Marie borough. "The system worked well before."

Bahl said he fears people might not bother going to a second location just to return a few cans or bottle, something he said they would normally do when going to the grocery store.

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Marica Vazquez Tagliero, Les Valoristes Co-op co-founder, agrees that removing machines will create accessibility issues.

Her organization works with unhoused people who rely on returning cans and bottles for extra income.

"Even a kilometre is a lot when you come with your bag and you find out that this machine is not working," she said.

"If you want to increase participation, and that's really what we want, we have to have accessible services and obviously when we close the machine more, we are hindering that," she said.

Vazquez Tagliero believes it can also undermine people's confidence in the system.

"If I paid [for] five cans and I want to return them, I should have the right to do it and it should be easy for me, it shouldn't be complicated," she said, adding that a deposit is not a tax.

"You should be able to take it back."

Lefort, however, says the changes are necessary.

Consignaction's goal is to reach a 90 per cent recovery rate for all beverage containers by 2032, or five billion containers annually.

Currently, the system can recover around four billion containers annually, up from 2.5 billion two and a half years ago, when the first phase of modernization was implemented.

"It's massive," Lefort said, adding the expansion of the system isn't just about volume but the type of containers that are redeemable.

"When you double the volume and you complexify the types of material that you're handling, retailers … don't want to do it [and] they don't have the capacity to do it," he said.

The organization says dedicated sorting centres are key in simplifying and standardizing the deposit-return system.

The various locations of the new Consignaction centres and existing locations can be found on an interactive map on the organization's website.

Depending on locations, services can vary from single-unit returns with automated reclaimers, bulk deposit of large quantities of unsorted beverage containers, and express return, which requires use of the Consignaction app.

"So I just register my bag, I put the sticker on the bag, I drop it off, I'm in and out in 60 seconds," Lefort said, explaining the how the express return works. "And Consignaction, we do the count and we reimburse you electronically."

Consignation says it will take some time for people to adapt, and with the transition in full swing, staff will be on site at the centres to help explain the new process.

The last phase of the transition is expected by next spring when Quebecers will be able to return all glass containers and multi-layer cartons for refunds, including wine bottles and milk cartons.

Journalist

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