• France is still behind on plastic recycling.

  • However, a sector is starting to develop to recover this waste.

  • In Rennes, the Veolia group has developed a sorting unit dedicated to rigid plastics at its Barre-Thomas site.

Plastic is really not great for the planet. In particular rigid plastics which very often end up incinerated or buried. Of the four million tonnes of plastic used each year in France, barely a quarter is recycled in this way. With delay, however, things are starting to move according to the regulations with a sector that is beginning to develop. In Rennes, in the industrial zone of the road to Lorient, the Veolia group has since the end of 2019 set up a sorting unit dedicated to rigid plastics.

Its activity is still marginal at the recycling center, which also acts as a waste reception center for construction professionals and craftsmen.

"We recovered 800 tonnes of plastic last year out of the 100,000 tonnes of waste that are processed on the site each year", underlines Christophe Loyeau, director of the business service division at Veolia in Ille-et-Vilaine and in the Côtes -d'Armor.

But the movement to give a second life to plastic waste is accelerating and the unit hopes to reach the threshold of 2,500 tons per year fairly quickly.

Waste transformed into secondary raw materials

For now, it mainly collects rigid plastics from waste reception centers in the Rennes metropolitan area as well as those from professionals such as the Truffaut, Agromousquetaires or Canon groups.

In the large hangar where the sorting unit is located, we discover a tangle of empty vats and cans, garden tables and chairs or flower pots.

All this waste has the particularity of being in high density polyethylene (HDPE) or polypropylene, the two types of plastics accepted.

“Unlike other polymers, these are materials that have real value with outlets for recycling them,” explains Nicolas Lagarde, recovery manager at Veolia for Brittany.

Once received, this plastic waste will be crushed on site before being separated by optical sorting.

The pieces are then sent to the four regeneration plants of the Veolia group in France to be transformed into granules before being recycled.

They will come out in the form of secondary raw material which will be used by industrial players, in particular for the manufacture of flower pots, pipes or swimming pool components.

So many objects ready to restart their plastic life.

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