Questions and Answers about Arbressence

Arbressence is a circular economy company that offers a free and reliable cedar trimming collection service to citizens, municipalities, and landscapers. The collected cedar trimmings are brought to our distillery to be distilled for essential oil extraction. Every year, we divert thousands of tons of material from landfills by repurposing cedar trimmings, all within a sustainable development perspective.

Our cedar trimming collection service is offered free of charge in several municipalities.
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If your city or municipality does not appear in the list of areas served by Arbressence, we invite you to contact your municipal council to inform them about our cedar trimming collection service. We would be happy to extend our service coverage to your city or municipality! 

Arbressence is the partner of over 1,000 landscapers across Quebec. If you want your trimmings to be recycled by Arbressence, please contact us at info@arbressence.ca and we will get in touch with you as soon as possible.

Once your hedge is trimmed, you can schedule a collection by filling out the form available on our website.

We accept:

• Anything that can be cut by a hedge trimmer (foliage);
• A pile of material composed of 100% green foliage;
• Branches must not exceed 1 inch (2.5 cm) in diameter;
• The length of the branches must not exceed 3 feet (90 cm); 
• The material must be placed at the roadside, either in piles or in bag(s).

If the collection criteria are not met, a non-collection notice will be left at your door. You must follow the instructions on the notice to rectify the situation and allow the collection of your cedar trimmings. 

Generally, the trimmings can be kept for a maximum of 5 to 10 days depending on the storage conditions and outside temperatures (if the foliage is always green, it will be recyclable, but if it is completely yellowish or brown, it has lost its properties and therefore cannot be recovered). It is therefore important to get in touch with us quickly as as possible and as soon as you have finished trimming your cedars in order to ensure the maximum freshness of the trimmings.

Recycling cedar trimmings is important for several reasons:

1. Reduction of green waste: It helps reduce the amount of organic matter sent to landfills, thus reducing the greenhouse gases it would produce as it decomposes.
2. Resource repurposing and circular economy approach: Once at Arbressence’s distillery, your cedar trimmings are transformed into essential oil and valuable residual mulch, rather than simply being sent to the trash. The valuable residual mulch is used as ecological soil backfill by our agricultural partners.

Additionally, cedar contains essential oil and chemical compounds, such as hinokitiol, which act as antifungal and insecticidal agents. Therefore, it is highly recommended not to put your cedar trimmings in the brown bin or your home compost as it will delay decomposition by repelling insects and preventing the formation of fungi. 

No, our cedar trimming collection service is free for all municipalities we serve. 

No, we are not able to pick up entire trees. If you cut down a cedar hedge and want us to recycle your trimmings, you need to limb the cedars so that only the green trimmings and branches with a maximum diameter of one and a half inches remain. Otherwise, we offer a chipping service with fees. For more information, click here.

No, which is why it is important to ensure that there are no branches from other tree species in the bags and piles of trimmings intended for collection by Arbressence. 

In the past, Arbressence left a sample of cedar essential oil at each address where a collection was performed. Since the 2023 season, we have decided to stop distributing samples due to concerns about the ecological impact of this practice. Once the essential oil is used, these small glass bottles end up in recycling centers that are overwhelmed or, worse yet, in landfills. During peak season, Arbressence performs several hundred collections per day, which means that as many small glass bottles head to recycling centers or landfills. Given our ecological values, we believe this was a more sensible decision to reduce our ecological footprint. We hope you understand. 

A boiler heats the water to boiling point in order to inject the steam at the bottom of the cylinders. The steam then passes through the various levels (baskets) of fresh and compacted trimmings, to be then sucked by the radiator system (coil) cooled with water. This last step will have the effect of condensing the vapor to return it in the form of a mixture of water and oil (60% water, 40% oil). This mixture will be found in settling tanks to allow us to collect the layer of oil that floats above the water, the oil being lighter. The process takes approximately 6 hours in total.

Yes, it is possible! We offer a wide range of bulk essential oils as well as packaging services on request. Our products are available in sizes ranging from 1 kg to 200 kg. To place an order that exceeds the sizes available on our website, please send us an email to info@arbressence.ca