Valais: SATOM opens its doors wide for its 50th anniversary

PostedAugust 27, 2022, 8:48 PM

Wallis: SATOM opens its doors wide for its 50th anniversary

The Chablais waste incineration plant inaugurated a tour and showed the public its achievements and future projects.

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In a few years, normally in 2028, the well-known chimneys of SATOM might disappear,

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The visit route passes through the control room.

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Using a grab, an operator chooses the waste stored in a huge pit and then directs it to the furnace.

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On Saturday, hundreds of people went to a place called Boeuferrant. In this area, in 1972, the SATOM waste incineration plant was inaugurated. In fifty years, the installation has developed considerably and today, it recovers waste either by recycling or by using the heat produced by the furnaces. These calories make it possible, among other things, to provide district heating in Monthey (VS) and Collombey-Muraz (for the moment), but also steam for the montheysan chemical site, via a tube recently commissioned.

SATOM is close to a neutral carbon balance can we read in a press release. With its future projects, the company will even have a CO balance₂ negative. Indeed, the thermal network will soon be extended to Aigle (VD). Another project: the production of hydrogen from its own electrical energy. Its purpose will be to power the region’s transport and waste collection trucks, thus creating a carbon-free ecosystem.

Permanent visits

Today, visitors were able to follow a tour through the facilities. From September, these visits can be booked on the SATOM website. And within two years, a visitor center will be developed to allow the general public, schools and other actors to discover how the factory transforms non-recyclable waste into resources, in a logic of circular economy. Skills, technologies and challenges will be brought together and exhibited in this center to inform and raise awareness of the real challenges of responsible waste management.

Currently, two furnaces allow the incineration of 10.5 tonnes of waste per hour, or 180,000 tonnes over the year. A new oven should replace the oldest one which is reaching the end of its life. The new facility will process 15 tonnes per hour and will be equipped with even more efficient flue gas treatment. An additional steam turbine will optimize electricity production and steam supply to the montheysan chemical site. The development of the new furnace offers the opportunity to insert a CO capture unit by 2030₂.

(comm/jbm)