On Friday 19 November Sitel officially inaugurated the construction site of its brand-new sorting centre. To mark the occasion, a virtual presentation of the installations was given. Sitel manager Laurent Marchal explained the new technologies that will be used to sort almost 40,000 tonnes of waste per year on this 36,000-square-metre site.
Irwin Guckel, chairman of the Sitel administrative committee, said that the EUR 40 million investment provided definite added value in waste management for all the communes served by Intradel.
The mayor of Engis, Serge Manzato, expressed his great satisfaction with this large-scale project in a thriving industrial estate.
In fact, since the extension of the sorting instructions and the introduction of the New Blue Bag throughout Belgium as of 1 October this year, more household packaging can be included and sorted with the PMD waste. Plastic tubs and containers, bags and pots can now be put in the New Blue Bag, making it possible to collect around an extra 8 kg of PMD waste per person, per year. The sorting centres therefore have to deal with an additional 90,000 tonnes of PMD annually, so clearly the sorting capacity needed to be increased and new technologies had to be introduced and used to sort the new types of materials correctly. The construction of a new sorting centre in Belgium that meets all the latest technological requirements is therefore very welcome. The new plant will make it possible to sort the contents of the New Blue Bag into 14 fractions, with the possibility of adding other potential fractions in the future, and to put high-quality materials on the recycling market which will then be recycled to produce highly sought-after secondary raw materials.
Fost Plus COO Mik Van Gaever stressed that with five new sorting centres, Belgium is a forerunner in the creation of a circular packaging economy, something which is only possible because of the support of every partner in the chain.
