2024-07-23 06:30:22
The CEDRE company is the leader in Ile de France in the collection and sorting of waste from businesses and administrations.
Created in 2005, Cèdre – Creation of Sustainable Jobs in Recycling and the Environment – has developed activities of selective sorting, collection and recovery of tertiary waste for companies and the public and private establishments. The company is now the leader in the Ile de France region in the collection and sorting of waste from businesses and administrations and recycles up to 27 different types of office waste recovered in their sector.
Since the start of its activity, Cèdre has had a dual mission. An ecological objective of preserving natural resources is combined with a social mission: to enable and promote access to employment for people with disabilities or in social difficulty and to support them throughout their professional career. The workforce currently has 220 employees, 58% of whom are disabled.
Sarah Boissier, Program Director at Cedarexplained to Techniques de l’Ingénieur how the company operates to best recover the different types of waste collected and treated.
Engineering Techniques: What is special about working on diffuse waste deposits?
Sarah Boissier: Our job is first and foremost a job of planning and managing collection rounds, in a highly regulated profession, with the inherent challenges. We need to drive as little as possible and have our drivers adopt eco-driving practices. We use a tour optimization tool and all our vehicles are geolocated.
In addition, we have three sites in the Ile de France region that allow us to effectively cover the territory and always collect within 30 km of one of our sorting centers. The opening of a fourth site is currently under consideration.
Then, we closely monitor our carbon footprint, and this is strongly linked to the emissions of our fleet. Last year, we switched our entire heavy goods vehicle fleet to biofuel (B100), while light vehicles run on CNG or electric. All of these actions have allowed us to halve our emissions and limit our operating costs.
In addition, we bring regulatory aspects to our customers, particularly with regard to waste traceability. At Cèdre, we rely on fully digitalized collection via the scanning of QR codes on our bins or bags.
Finally, collecting diffuse deposits requires being able to massify the flows before revaluing them, because ultimately everything is a question of volume.
What is the business model?
Historically, we have two main sources of revenue: we charge our customers for collection on a flat-rate basis based on the number of visits and the number of waste items collected.
Then, for certain flows (paper, WEEE, metal, etc.), the material is bought back from us. The price is based on material prices and varies according to several parameters. As a sorting collector, we have control over some of these parameters: sorting quality and therefore purity of the flow (we sort white paper, for example, which is bought back at a higher price), sorting depth (WEEE equipment contains several materials; the more it is dismantled and sorted, the more value can be extracted from it).
But on others, we are subject to market surges, which sometimes makes the model fragile. Especially since the tonnages of paper collected – which represents historical waste – are decreasing from year to year.
For several years, we have undertaken a diversification process and have launched new activities that are complementary and generate new margins: for example, a consulting unit to support our customers in reducing non-recycled waste, the installation of Cèdre employees “on site” at our customers’ premises or one-off operations to remove bulky items and construction site waste, or the recycling of PPE and textiles via our subsidiary. Triethic.
What are the issues underlying this model?
First of all, we must have the means to consolidate our flows, which requires space and significant investments in compaction. It is also essential to be constantly on the lookout for new recycling channels that emerge: we are always very vigilant about the choice of our outlets. Collecting new waste is only of interest if its effective recycling is ensured.
Then, sorting at source carried out by our customers is a strong and historic focus at Cèdre. We want the responsibility for sorting to rest with the person who generates the waste. This is important in terms of education et This allows us to focus our employees on tasks with higher added value. We invest a lot in this area because the implementation of a circular economy is only possible if all the players in the value chain are involved. On this point, our customers need to be supported. This is also a strong demand from employees, a healthy and sustainable working environment is one of the axes of CSR strategies.
Concretely, we have developed and patented the Tertiary waste fresco – a workshop delivered in person – and more recently uA digital awareness and self-training program including videos, quizzes and numerous interactive games co-developed with LaFaBriQ’, a Qualiopi-certified training center, creator of interactive and personalized learning experiences on themes related to CSR in connection with the Sustainable Development Goals.
We also need to move towards increasingly fine-grained management of materials: undertaking fine dismantling, particularly of WEEE waste, or even going as far as shredding certain materials, which we already do with confidential paper, hard drives and construction helmets.
Finally, and this is fundamental, there is a major issue linked to the need to promote a more circular economy, and therefore to promote reuse loops before the recycling loop. This is a real paradigm shift in our business. We are committed to it, Of course and we consider that it is a great opportunity for our social model because it is a job-creating activity.
Sectors are being created, driven in particular by the emergence of reuse platforms, in computer equipment or furniture. These tech startups attract funds, which is good for the sector! However, the economic models are still fragile in repair and reconditioning activities and there is still a lack of investment to establish the sector over time.
Interview by Pierre Thouverez
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