Foundation stone for the new Household Packaging Recycling Centre in Belgium

Jan De Nul Group, Vauché S.A. and Val’Up have laid the foundation stone for a brand new Household Packaging Recycling Centre in Ghlin, near Mons in Hainaut. This event took place this afternoon in the presence of Elio Di Rupo, Minister-President of the Walloon region, and Céline Tellier, Walloon Minister of Environment. Val’Up, new name for Valodec, the association of Hainaut intermunicipal companies Idéa and Ipalle and private waste management companies Suez et Vanheede, awarded this Design&Build contract, worth 30 million euros, at the end of 2019 to the Joint Venture Jan De Nul-Vauché. The recycling centre is a response to the expanded household packaging collection that was introduced in January 2019 in Belgium.

In this way, Val’Up is giving the starting signal for the construction of its new flagship. The Joint Venture Jan De Nul-Vauché will build the Val’Up Mons centre in less than a year and make it operational so that Val’Up can receive and treat the new types of household packaging. Once operational, the recycling centre will be able to treat up to 5,000 waste bags per hour, or 50,000 tonnes of waste per year.

The civil department of the dredging and construction company Jan De Nul Group will be responsible for the realisation of the centre and the infrastructure works. Vauché S.A., a French Sedan-based company specialising in the design and construction of equipment and complete turnkey waste treatment and recovery units, will be responsible for the sorting system itself.

Val'Up, more sorting for more recycling

Today, Valodec ensures, via the Cuesmes centre, the sorting of household packaging for an area of more than 600,000 inhabitants. The Cuesmes centre, which was put into service more than 15 years ago, had to be reinvented to meet current sorting and recycling constraints for the various collected materials.

The Val'Up site therefore meets a concrete need: to ensure optimal sorting of household packaging so that it can be recycled even more. The Val'Up recycling centre will be innovative and evolutionary, because it will be able to adapt to the current extension and future changes in sorting instructions. This industrial site, which will be operational in the summer of 2021, will sort new types of household packaging, while continuing to sort the usual packaging waste flows.

This circular recycling centre is an example for the sector

This project gives the Joint Venture Jan De Nul-Vauché the opportunity to build a hypermodern recycling centre. By its size and recycling techniques, Val’Up Mons will be an example for the sector.

At the entrance to the site, there will be a large storage basin for plastics, larger than five Olympic-sized swimming pools. More than 50 machines and 150 conveyor belts will be used to sort household packaging waste. In order to guarantee the expected level of quality, the centre will be equipped with the latest technical innovations: 20 optical sorting systems, aeraulic and ballistic separators. Once sorted by type, colour and size, the materials will come out as compressed cubes. The public waste agency Fost Plus will take care of the resale of these cubes afterwards.