SUEZ Recyclage et Valorisation Réunion has developed a local resource for the identification and knowledge of the dangerousness of waste which, until then, had to be sent to mainland France to be analyzed. Operational since the last quarter of 2023, its new analysis laboratory is also open to local businesses. A major step forward for waste management.
With the completion of this project, SUEZ Recyclage et Valorisation Réunion not only meets its internal needs for identification and analysis of compounds and materials, but to those of Reunion companies, which are no longer obliged to have their industrial waste analyzed in metropolitan laboratories to meet their regulatory obligations. The sorting and recycling specialist himself, which had a basic laboratory since 2009, had its analyzes carried out in the group's metropolitan laboratories. Waste analysis is a new service offered by SUEZ to local economic players, and around fifteen companies have already used it. Analyzes using standardized and certified methods are essential to ensure waste traceability, to know what elements make them up and towards which recycling or elimination channels they should be directed, in compliance with regulations. Furthermore, the laboratory's analytical capacity does not only concern hazardous waste, but also the effluents.
A unique team of experts in the French Overseas Territories
The progress is therefore major for the time it saves (two to four weeks for effluent, For example) and the additional cost of shipping that it avoids. It is also a gain in skills for Reunion, because this laboratory, the first of this level in the French Overseas Territories, is led by chemist Alexandra Mariadassou, recruited in 2021 to equip the tool and build its team of seven scientific technicians who have been trained in materials analysis. This team of experts will monitor the flow of hazardous waste on the Bois-Rouge storage platform, but also the quality control of products leaving the Inovest multi-sector recovery center, namely solid recovered fuel (CSR) that the future neighboring Albioma facility will use to produce energy from waste and the range of composts intended for horticulture and urban green spaces.
Qualitative requirements and regulatory constraints
The laboratory works on three types of analyzes. Analysis of wastewater before discharge : rainwater and water from retention basins. Analysis of hazardous industrial waste in order to determine their characteristics and the corresponding recycling or elimination channels. Finally, quality control of CSR and composts. Current events provide a blatant example of the progress brought by this tool with the start, in April, of a ship which will transport hazardous waste to be treated in mainland France (the third in two years). The Reunion laboratory was called upon to analyze this waste, “in order to know if they could live together and under what conditions they could travel by boat. On-site analyzes in Reunion will help optimize these shipments”, comments Alexandra Mariadassou.
20,000 tests carried out in 2023
The waste identification and analysis activity has continued to grow since the development of the laboratory's capabilities. : 20,000 tests were carried out in 2023, and activity doubled in the last months of the year. If needed, the provision of expertise begins in the company with an initial examination of the waste to be analyzed, in particular to decide on the conditions of their transport to the laboratory. Only waste containing radioactive elements is not accepted. SUEZ Recyclage et Valorisation Réunion estimates that more than a hundred companies are affected by the need for waste analysis in Réunion..
SUEZ RV Reunion laboratory : Alexandra Mariadassou, such. 0262 47 35 50
