Plateforme La Plaine is the story of the symbiotic arrangement devised by four industry insiders who, conscious of the carbon impact of the construction sector, decided to make it possible to recycle all of the mineral materials derived from deconstruction projects. The businesses concerned are: ECOSOR, a company that cleans up contaminated materials; Henry Recycling, which re-uses building site waste; H2M Exploitation, which recycles deconstruction materials and washes rubble so that it can be used by the fourth member of the quartet, BGO, to make concrete. It is a unique, all-encompassing and sustainable set-up that addresses the problem of our diminishing natural resources and stands as a shining example of urban mining and re-recycling.
The platform’s 35,000m2 site of complementary facilities is designed to process at least 150,000 tonnes a year, saving the equivalent tonnage in gravel pit excavation and landfill. In addition, the site can clean up 25,000 tonnes of contaminated materials per year. “Our aim is to recycle everything that ends up on site so that we can keep waste to an absolute minimum, with a view to upcycling the materials,” says Mathieu Provost, director of H2M. The materials handled there retain their original mechanical properties and, once reprocessing is complete, meet construction industry standards again. This means that they can be pretty much endlessly recycled.
Plateforme La Plaine is also geared up to limiting long-distance transport. “We collect most of the recovered materials from within a 50-kilometre radius,” says Mathieu Provost. The same applies to the outgoing recycled materials, which are delivered to the platform’s customers around the region. The nearby rail connection also means that road transport from and to the site can be kept to a minimum. In addition, the four partner companies are interconnected by a network of belt feeders powered by 5,000 m2 of photovoltaic panels, limiting the use of diesel-powered equipment to convey the materials from one processing point to another. Plateforme La Plaine plans to develop this system and link it via tunnels to several nearby gravel pits.
The site, which began operating in 2021, employs around thirty people. CHF 65 million have been invested in the project, all from private finance. Plateforme La Plaine’s customers are construction and demolition companies, and the platform also works with rail freight companies. This example of industrial symbiosis is an important demonstrator of what can be achieved on a large scale to reduce the ecological footprint of the construction industry. It is one that is set to inspire similar projects in Switzerland and further afield.
Plateforme La Plaine
