Snow is becoming increasingly rare on the mid-altitude ski slopes.
The question then arises of the future of certain facilities that have become useless... Volunteers from the Mountain Wilderness association for the protection of the mountains have thus undertaken to dismantle an old ski lift in the Alps, abandoned for seventeen years and which "spoils the landscape and poses questions of safety", explains Véronique, its general secretary.
“People could climb, fall, get hurt.
Birds can get caught in the cable.
When rusting, the posts will rust and get holes, and birds or small mammals will want to settle inside to nest there.
But if they will be able to get in, they will not be able to come out, ”she lists.
"In France, around 107 ski lifts are abandoned"
“In France, today we have about 107 abandoned ski lifts.
However, the law provides that everything that was installed from 2016 must be dismantled by the owner of the installation, but this is unfortunately not the case for everything that dates from before the end of 2016. thanks to the good will of town halls, municipalities, national parks… and associations like ours”, explains Véronique.
In an ecological approach, all the dismantled elements will be redistributed and reused: "the trackers' tray will be lowered for the Cinémathèque, we will also lower the poles and panels - "avalanche danger", for example - and it will be permanently exhibited at the Cinémathèque d'images de montagne, in Gap", explains a volunteer.
Same thing for the metal, which will be “recovered by a scrap dealer and will go back to recycling channels to be remelted and used to manufacture other metal objects”, explains Nicolas, administrator of Mountain Wilderness.
Witness this dismantling in this video from our partner Brut.
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