Founded by Paul Soubaya, the Réunion Valorisation Environnement company (RVE), specialized in the depollution of waste electrical and electronic equipment, won a call for expressions of interest from Citeo in 2022 aimed at facilitating the recycling of local plastic waste. The time has come for the technical-financial assembly of the project and the search for land that can accommodate the new activity..
ORPLAST means “plastic recycling objective” : this is a device intended to increase the use of plastic materials from recycling in production activities. It is within the framework of the France Relance plan and the anti-waste law for a circular economy that the Ministry of Ecological Transition and ADEME launched this ORPLAST call for projects in 2021. (the third of its kind after those of 2016 and 2018). At stake, investment assistance to set up projects facilitating the recycling of plastic materials. This third edition of ORPLAST was aimed at SMEs and, among the twenty regions concerned, included the five overseas departments and French Polynesia. This was followed by a call for expressions of interest organized by Citeo, national eco-organization in charge of recycling plastic packaging, who selected Paul Soubaya’s technical solution for Reunion Island, founder of the company Réunion Valorisation Environnement, which since 2006 has been dealing with the pre-treatment of WEEE. The project plans to produce glitter from plastic waste. This transformation is the first essential step in any plastic recycling process.. The technical solution proposed by Paul Soubaya will make it possible to make profitable an industrial tool sized for the Reunion Island deposit of 6,000 to 7,000 tonnes of plastic waste. In a city, current solutions need to treat at least 15,000 tonnes of waste to be economically viable.
Glitter, a secondary raw material
This technical advance should significantly increase the secondary raw material available in Reunion Island to produce plastic packaging and films.. It should also modify the conditions for exporting plastic waste since it would be glitter., and no longer just bales of plastic waste, which would be shipped. “It was by thinking about the problem of plastics in our WEEE activity that we considered this development, explains Paul Soubaya. The idea is to set up a plastics processing unit in Reunion, all plastics combined, in line with the deposit and the local economy The challenge was to find a technical solution that could go as far as recycling. Eventually, we will stop at the production of flakes which can be used in any recycling process. Pour le bottle to bottle, the manufacture of new bottles from the recycling of PET bottles, the glitter will be reshipped outside the island. For other plastics, With these flakes, we will produce aggregates adapted to the needs of local stakeholders., the surplus being exported. »
The call to communities
The deposit ? This will involve directing all household plastics to the new unit., plastics coming from the Inovest center, agricultural films, the tarpaulins, plastics from vehicle dismantling, plastic waste from all professional sectors, etc. The calendar expects activity to start at the end of 2026. The time has come for the technical and financial assembly of the project and, the Saint-André site of RVE not being able to accommodate it, looking for land. “I would prefer it to be in the East, where unemployment is high », don't hide Paul Soubaya, who sends this message to communities. “It would be real added value for the Eastern economy”, argues the leader of RVE, recalling that he also has other development projects in sight.
