SIDIM 2014

SIDIM 2014
Montreal International Design Show

May 22 - 25, 2014

SIDIM is the Montreal's most prestigious design showcase. This annual show attracts local and internationals artists, designers, architects and builders.

As always, the show is being held at the Place Bonaventure.

For more information visit SIDIM website

http://www.sidim.com/en

Cascades - 50th Anniversary

CASCADES 
50th anniversary

Cascades, a Quebec company with international branches and far-reaching business connections and sales, celebrated its 50th anniversary yesterday. This event took place at Kingsey Falls, in largely rural Quebec, where the company has its paper recycling facilities that produce soft tissue and paper packaging products. The company praises itself on being green and sustainable, and on using far less water with their recycling technology than is the norm for this industry. The company's new product is "body tissue" which is beige in colour since it has not been bleached or treated with any colourants.

The picture above is a zoom-up of the stage decoration you can see in the photo at the top of this article. It shows several of Cascades' final products: cardboard packaging boxes, tissue paper, and the kitchen towels and toilet paper. The attractive bench in the front of the paper products is made entirely from recycled plastics at the company's Drumondville, Quebec recycling plant. 

The company is very enthusiastic about its business path and perspectives, regardless of the Canadian dollar's fluctuating exchange rate and other possible market events.

The formalities of the annual meeting was followed by a festive reception at Parc Marie-Victorin. Below you can see a photo of a generous and sumptuous buffet table. There were quite a few such tables in the hall.

Here are photos of the desserts.

One more important event for Cascades was scheduled to follow the reception: an inauguration of a footbridge across the Nicolet Niver at the Kingsey Falls. The bridge is a gift from the Cascades company to the community, fully conceived and supported from the start by the Lemaire brothers, the Cascades' co-founders. It is made almost exclusively from recycled materials: industrial, construction and plastics.

Being a sustainable, green company, the Cascades have chosen a green ribbon instead of the traditional red one to be cut at the Nicolet River bridge inauguration.

And, of course, the ribbon-cutting was followed by champaign...

Next on the program was the trip to the Cascades' Soft Tissue plant at Kingsey Falls. We were met at the information area where the Cascades' history was projected on two screens. Then we were given eye-protection glasses before the visit of the plant could begin.

It is not allowed to take pictures inside the Cascades plants, but I was given a special permission to take just the three following photos. The one just below is that of the piles of discarded paper to be recycled at the Cascades facility.

The following two photos show the final product of recycling, huge rolls of soft tissue paper to be used in the making of the toilet paper, facial tissue, or kitchen paper towels. Each roll is a sixty-kilometres-long continuous soft paper sheet, and looks like a gigantic toilet paper roll.

For more information about the company, its history and vision, visit the Cascades website.

The tour of the Cascades' Soft Tissue plant is also available to the general public and is organized by the Parc Marie-Victorin complex at Kingsey Falls, Quebec.

Click on any image to enlarge it.