- Alteo, known for its red mud, has long endeavored to highlight its significant environmental investments.
- But the company is now in receivership, with a precarious financial balance.
- Environmental protection associations are worried, especially since the state seems to favor the economy over environmental protection in this matter.
Not so long ago, Alteo posed as a champion of ecology. By means of press releases and other press trips, the world leader in specialty aluminas, a material used in building materials such as tiles or components of high-tech products, tried to highlight its efforts in this area. As if to better counter the sharp criticisms of which the Gardanne plant, in the Bouches-du-Rhône, has been the subject for a few years for its discharges into the sea, known as "red mud", in the Calanques National Park, near Marseille. But also for the storage on land, near the Gardanne site, of solid waste. The factory is even the subject of judicial information for "endangering the lives of others".
“Alteo dedicated more than eight million euros to the environment in 2018, or 50% of its global investments, prided itself on the company in a July press release. And we plan to invest an additional 20 million euros over the next three years. Among the company's projects, the creation of a waterproof basin on the Mange-Garri site, the opening of which was announced for 2020.
"Employees are worried"
But that was before. Before the company, which employs around 500 employees, announced, to everyone's surprise, its request for placement in receivership, last December. Since then, the company's news has been punctuated by its accounts, and its financial balance hangs by a thread.
"The employees are worried, says Bruno Arnoux, secretary of the social and economic committee of the company, while a new hearing as a point of stage is scheduled for Thursday before the Commercial Court of Marseille. We still don't know what sauce we're going to be eaten at. We are concerned about the management of suppliers. When they are not paid, as is currently the case, they are rather reluctant to work dearly for us, even if they are legally compelled… ”
"It is doomed to failure"
What arouse the fears of environmental protection associations, who ask themselves a unanimous question: how can a company facing such financial difficulties guarantee the environmental investments it has promised to make? "It does not have the means to pay for bauxite, its raw material, how do you want it to feed another component of funding?" Wonders Henry Augier, president of Union calanques littoral. It is not possible. It is doomed to failure. Alteo is ordered to file for bankruptcy. It is an aging factory, which is no longer competitive. "
An apprehension fueled by a recent decision of the prefect of Bouches-du-Rhône, who granted an environmental stay to the company, a few days after his placement in receivership, in the name of employment and economic safeguard. In fact, while Alteo initially had until the end of 2019 to bring its liquid discharges into the Calanques national park into compliance with environmental standards, Pierre Dartout issued a decree granting five additional months to the company and the hundreds of employees, putting the environmental issue in the background.
"An extremely limited environmental impact"
“On the Alteo file, we are showing objectivity and balance between the economy and the environment, justified himself during his vows to the press last week the prefect of Bouches-du-Rhône. Alteo is a company which employs 500 people in an employment pool which is that of Gardanne, which is experiencing the difficulties you know and which already has a high unemployment rate, with the additional question of the coal-fired power station. There is moreover an important industrial activity. "
And even to assert, unlike many environmental protection associations: "The situation that we are going to have and that we already have, which will continue until the beginning of June, has a extremely limited environmental impact. It was a necessary decision given the economic and social situation of the company, but which posed no problem in environmental terms. Overtaking is limited. On the other hand, next June, Europe will impose different slightly stricter standards on us. However, in the meantime, the Alteo company will have built a treatment plant. The investment has been implemented. The works have started. The station will emerge from the ground next March and should be operational in early June, just when the exemption ends. "
“We still have the cash to make these investments,” assures Bruno Arnoux. These elements for the environment are regulatory obligations. They must be part of the package for receivership. When contacted, Alteo did not wish to answer our questions about its current environmental investments, and their future, and justifies this silence ... by the bankruptcy proceedings that the company is currently undergoing.
Economy
Bouches-du-Rhône: Cornered for its “red mud”, Alteo placed in receivership
Planet
Gardanne: Technical incident at Alteo, no consequences for the environment ensures the company
- Marseilles
- Legal redress
- Red mud
- Environment