New approaches in contracts and environmental regulations to implement a circular supply chain in spring street sweeping

Every year, northern countries purchase and spread mineral abrasives (sand and crushed stone) on their road networks as part of their winter maintenance operations. The 31,000 km overseen by the Ministère des Transports du Québec require an average of 1 million tonnes of abrasives annually. In the spring, a portion of the abrasives is collected during road sweeping operations. Subject to strict environmental regulations, most of the material that is recovered is landfilled. Considering the negative financial and environmental impacts of landfilling, the technical feasibility of conditioning recovered abrasives for reuse in winter maintenance operations was demonstrated at the local level by screening the residual material. Part of the collected material (sweepings) could therefore be reused as abrasives through the implementation of a circular economy strategy that would curb landfilling and the consumption of non-renewable virgin mineral resources.

The project aims to review the flow maps of the circular chain based on the regulatory approach of a recovery centre in the construction, renovation and demolition sector and propose new and equitable contractual approaches for the circular chain.