SUEZ launches the new treatment and recycling facility for polluted soil in Drambon, France

The recycling facility for polluted and assimilated soil¹ can now process 90,000 tonnes of soil per year, particularly from earthworks, remediation and industrial brownfields.  

The site ensures full traceability of the soil received. After characterisation, it is treated according to its nature and type (mechanical pre-treatment, biocentre², etc.) to give it a second life in cement production, public works (landscape backfilling, road sub-layer), or as topsoil for the redevelopment of waste storage facilities. 

There are also storage and stabilisation solutions, for the management of certain more complex types of pollution. 

The new facility is growing, from an area of 13,000 m² to 25,000 m², in order to better meet industrial and local authority needs in the region. It will also be able to recycle more waste, thanks to the creation of a new recovery channel bottom ash from energy recovery.

This site, which opened in 1998 and has 31 employees, is used to treat hazardous waste, non-hazardous waste and polluted soil. 

Over the years, SUEZ has encouraged renewable energy production on the site, and innovated to reduce its energy consumption. Thus, biogas from non-hazardous waste provides 10,000 MWh of electricity per year, which is equivalent to the annual consumption of 6,000 people.  

Having obtained authorisation to operate for another 24 years, SUEZ can continue to develop the site, in order to best support the territorial needs of the region, from an environmental and industrial point of view.

ENGIE and SUEZ are working together to accelerate the energy transition in the territories, via a partnership to develop photovoltaic solar parks on all waste storage centres. This partnership concerns around a hundred sites and represents a total potential of around 1 GWc.

The Drambon project from ENGIE Green, a subsidiary devoted to renewable energies, is the first to be carried out in this framework. Its construction began in spring 2018 and it is due to begin operation in the first quarter of 2019.

With a power of 12 MWc, it will provide electricity for the equivalent of 4,500 homes, corresponding to almost a third of the population of the CAP Val de Saône canton.  

The plant will occupy a surface of 20 ha, corresponding to the area covered by the former industrial waste storage facilities. This new green energy production activity contributes to the rehabilitation and recovery of this land.