Jean Zeid 06:56, March 22, 2024
Every morning, Jean Zeid delivers the best in terms of innovation. This Friday, he returns to the SNCF's desire to collect and recycle the tons of used professional clothing that it produces.
This Friday morning, the SNCF is starting recycling.
Yes, the SNCF which often criticizes journalists for only talking about trains which are late, well for a change, we are going to talk about the SNCF which arrives at recycling time and even in advance with its 25,000 agents equipped with professional outfits that they call “image outfits”. It ranges from shirts, t-shirts, polo shirts, sweaters, vests, jackets, parkas, scarves, headdresses, etc. And that represents around 250,000 used parts to change each year. In 2022, this represents 23
tonnes of professional clothing used.
What must be clarified is that this is not new at the SNCF.
No, since 2015, SNCF has wanted to collect and recycle the tons of used professional clothing that it produces. In 2016, it even initiated the Frivep project with the aim of testing a professional clothing recycling sector project.
Well here we are, we are talking about a complete recycling process in 2024.
After several years of work and research and development, two automated factories are now responsible for this work: Nouvelles Fibers Textiles for the automated sorting and unweaving of textiles in Rhône Alpes and Mapea in Lyon, which is there to produce the raw materials for plastics processing. Plastics processing is quite simply all the techniques for transforming plastic materials into insulation, into dashboards, and why into clothing...
In any case, these two factories allow the SNCF to set up a complete industrial process on a national scale and it goes from collection, sorting to automated dismantling to fraying and spinning or even the creation of raw materials for our famous plastics industry.
And it’s a 100% French sector that is just waiting to grow.
Exactly. French know-how and support for jobs and the local economy...The SNCF project is even supported by the Environment and Energy Management Agency (ADEME). In the process, it has created 1,500 direct and indirect jobs created thanks to this sector, and 140,000 tonnes of CO₂ saved. A new life for SNCF professional outfits, which are thus transformed into new garments, insulating materials or even plastic raw materials, and you are right, this goes well beyond the SNCF. The Nouvelles Fibers Textiles factory will now recycle clothing that was previously sent abroad to be transformed. And its leaders hope to move up to industrial speed next year. It’s a real industry that is being created here, and it’s well on time.