Ludres (France) (AFP)

"We have doubled the stations and the pace!": A waste treatment center in Ludres (Meurthe-et-Moselle) has reorganized to absorb the influx of infectious waste, masks, gloves, overcoats or charlottes, linked to increased use of protections against Covid-19 in hospitals.

At the Nancy-Brabois CHRU, the volumes of waste produced jumped. In the pulmonology department, transformed into a Covid-19 care unit, Gauthier, a 37-year-old nurse, throws a yellow bag into a bucket dedicated to healthcare waste with infectious risks (dasri), in a room at the bottom of a corridor.

The large bag, on which the date and service number are written, contains a closed cardboard box in which has been slipped ... another bag, containing masks, overcoats, gloves and other protective equipment.

Each time an agent enters a room to care for a coronavirus patient, he equips himself in the adjoining airlock, then withdraws while leaving.

Four times a day, agents collect the skips with the yellow cover, which are sent to the Veolia waste recovery center in Ludres, a few kilometers from the hospital.

- "Unprecedented increases" -

"If we don't collect the waste one day, we block the hospital," sums up Ambre Bastien, director of collection in southern Lorraine at Veolia.

The group processes 55,000 tonnes per year of dasri, or a third of the volume produced in France.

None of Veolia's 12 incineration units in France were saturated, but "we encountered difficulties, because these are unprecedented increases (+ 60% in volume, + 30% in tonnage), over very concentrated periods ", notes Marc-Antoine Belthé, director of the waste recycling and recovery subsidiary for Veolia.

"We received on our incineration units in Normandy or in Hauts-de-France certain flows which could not have been treated in time" by another actor of the sector in the Paris region, specifies Mr. Belthé.

Last week, the Minister of Ecological Transition, Elisabeth Borne, had assured studying "all the solutions to avoid an accumulation of these dasri in the walls of hospitals (...) to send them to neighboring regions less saturated or store them temporarily ".

In Ludres, where all types of waste are treated, it was necessary to reorganize to adapt to the increased activity.

"We doubled the stations and the pace!", Recounts Joël Keller in an orange jumpsuit, processing director, keeping an eye on the scanned skips scarcely unloaded from the truck.

- Burnt at 1,100 ° -

"I need to know where the bins come from, what time they arrived and I have 72 hours to cremate them," he adds.

Normally, the dumpsters wait five to six hours before being engulfed in one of the two ovens which consume seven tonnes of household waste and dasri per hour, at an average temperature of 1,100 ° C. With the health crisis, the waiting time was reduced to two hours.

Beside, Franck, a colorful scarf under his helmet, dressed in an overcoat and two pairs of gloves, maneuvers them one by one to bring them into an elevator.

After an ascent of about 25 m, the bucket overturns in a wagon which then spins on rails towards an oven. Everything is automated, but the technician can work on a dashboard with a screen.

"We have no room for error. We have done everything we can and we have succeeded in following," said Mr. Keller. The Ludres plant is the only one to incinerate infectious waste in the sector.

Among the bins, which must be airtight, some lids are struggling to close due to protruding bags. The dasri management procedure, however, requires "zero contact" between employees and waste, says site director, David Bourgatte.

"We do everything necessary so that no one is in contact with the virus, but it remains a risky activity," says Mr. Keller.

No "proven contamination of employees working in this segment of dasri" is to be deplored, specifies Mr. Belthé.

© 2020 AFP