Home > Dematerialisation > Good practices

Developing partnership with the social economy sector 

• Strasbourg & Nantes: Providing waste treatment service and contributing to social development 
• Offenbach: A municipal company with social objectives 
• Torino: Repairing and recycling WEEE  
• Brussels: Promoting the social economy sector to the public

Providing waste treatment service and contributing to social development 

ENVIE Strasbourg started its activities of collecting, repairing and selling household appliances in 1984. It clearly stated its aim to encourage social and professional reintegration of those in distress: ENVIE stands for “Entreprise Nouvelle Vers l’Insertion Economique”, which means “new undertakings towards economic integration”. It was based on a partnership between Emmaus, social workers and a leading French distributor of domestic appliances (DARTY). ENVIE offers a 2-year contract and training to low-qualified and unemployed people and sells second-hand goods with a 1-year guarantee. 

In 1995, the Strasbourg Urban Community signed a service contract with "ENVIE 2E - Environnement et Emploi", a subsidiarity of ENVIE. ENVIE 2E collects household appliances, dismantles them and removes hazardous fluids. This waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) is collected from all municipal waste container parks and from domestic appliance retailers. Goods are either repaired or dismantled to reuse and recycle the materials that they contain. This latest activity has created 15 jobs for people in social and professional distress. Over 5 years, the amount of goods collected by ENVIE 2E had been multiplied by 6. 

The public authority supports the development of ENVIE Strasbourg in at least three ways:

• Giving access to WEEE collected by the municipal services 
• Funding from the City of Strasbourg’s local plan for temporary employment (redistribution of European funding) 
• Provision of workers by the municipal social services 

Results achieved in Strasbourg 

By collecting and dismantling old domestic appliances such as fridges, ENVIE contributes to reducing the amount of CFCs and compressor oils that would be otherwise released in the environment. In 1996, after one year of functioning in Strasbourg, the amounts collected were estimated as follows: 

• 200 kg of CFCs
• 1,500 kg of compressor oil
• 980 kg of condensers
• 1,600 kg of glass (out of TV screen for instance) 
• 30,000 kg of concrete waste 
• 3,080 appliances were repaired for reuse 

It seems that this systems also reduces illegal rubbish dumps. 
This same year, ENVIE Strasbourg has employed 8 permanent staff and 20 transitional workers. More than 10 found a job after the termination of their contract with ENVIE. 

Replication at the national level 

In 18 years since 1984, 30 similar enterprises have been created all over France. They now constitute the ENVIE network. The umbrella organisation ENVIE Développement coordinates the activities and strives for the adoption of common logistics in training, marketing and purchase in the local and autonomous ENVIE undertakings. 

ENVIE network employs 750 persons: 200 with permanent jobs and 550 with temporary 2-year contracts. Since the foundation of the first ENVIE undertaking, 1,800 people have been trained all over France.
Each year, the group collects 300,000 electro-domestic goods (mainly white goods) and sells more than 6,000 second-hand goods in France, with an average price of 150 Euros. 
Following the example of Strasbourg, 9 other French municipalities have contracted ENVIE 2E for managing WEEE among which Rennes, Le Havre, Angers, Nantes. 

Perspectives 

Building on the experience of ENVIE in Nantes, the enterprise is developing a pilot project for implementing the European Directive on recycling Waste Electronic and Electrical Equipment in cooperation with the body responsible for collecting the fees on new appliances and organising the treatment of old ones. 

Social enterprises in waste management exist now in most European countries and some of them funded RREUSE, a network for exchange of experiences and cooperation in this sector. 

More information 

A municipal company with social objectives in Offenbach 

Offenbach is a German city of 117,444 inhabitants located next to Frankfurt am Main, within the Rhein-Main-Region, a conurbation of altogether 1,600,000 inhabitants.

The unemployment issue in Offenbach is mainly related to :

• the decline of the industrial sector and a structural change to services,
• a high share of low-qualified and long-term unemployed people, with a big part of immigrants (42,1% of unemployed people in Offenbach are foreigners).

The foundation of the “Gemeinnützige Offenbacher Ausbildungs- und Beschäftigungsgesellschaft GmbH (GOAB GmbH)” in 1985, wanted to be a response to these problems. GOAB GmbH is a non-profit-institution whose aim is to promote education, qualification and employment of social disadvantaged (young and adult) or long-term unemployed people, in order to get them started (again) in the labour market.
GOAB GmbH is a subsidiary company of the Offenbach Commune, which employs :

• 70 persons as permanent staff,
• 75 trainees,
• 150 employees with fixed-term contract.

The turnover amounts to 10 million Euros per year (State 2002). 

GOAB-Recycling-Centre

With its 81 employees, the GOAB Recycling Center is the biggest branch of the company. It has been existing since 1989, and specializing since 1992 in the recycling of electrical and electronic equipment. 

70 employees are hired in the scope of fixed-term contracts. Most of them were long-term unemployed persons or receiving income support. The staff of the centre welcomes handicapped or mental ill persons as well.

The WEEE which are treated by GOAB come from municipality kerbside collection and recycling parks (65%) and from commercial estates - banks, universities, insurance companies etc. (35%) GOAB only sorts and dismantles WEEE. Most of the appliances are manually dismantled, but to shred and sort refrigerators and freezers, for example, a specific technical system has been installed. Appliances which are repairable are given to a partner organisation in Frankfurt (Werksatt Frankfurt e.V.), which has its own outlets for reusable appliances. About 5.000 tonnes of EEE are treated each year.

Aluminium, copper, scrap metal, sorted synthetic material etc. are sold to companies which can use them as secondary raw materials, or to scrap dealers. Other components are disposed of at an official approved rubbish dump or used for thermal recovery. 

GOAB is financial self-sufficient on 50%, and the GOAB-Recycling-Centre is self-sufficient on roughly two thirds. The other part is a mix of subsidies for projects or wages, coming from the European Social Funds, from the "Bundesanstalt für Arbeit", from public funds from the Federal Republic, the Länder, or the Municipality.

The Goab-Team developed a training and qualification program on its own : a certificate is granted to the trainees after their six-month training, which is acknowledged by the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and they then get the job title of “Recycling-Worker”.

More information

Repairing and recycling WEEE in Torino - an ex-municipal company with social objectives

By the end of 1996 the Ministry of Environment and the Ministry of Work, in cooperation with the National Association of Italian Municipalities (ANCI) and the Confederacy of Public Utilities (CISPEL),subscribed an agreement for the creation of 12 platforms, on national scale, for the recovery, treatment and recycling of long-lasting consumer goods according to the Ronchi decree prescriptions (Decree 22/1997). The agreement also provided for the creation of jobs for long-term unemployed people under the Social Useful Workers category (LSU).

In 1997 Amiat Spa, a joint-stock company, created a branch for the recovery and treatment of refrigerators. At the end of year 2000, 31 person were working in it and 29 were LSU. Thus, in the same year, Amiat Spa created Amiat TBD Srl with a capital of more than 1 million Euros. Amiat TBD absorbed the company branch created by Amiat Spa and the 29 workers already working there were hired by the new company.

In order to reduce the losses expected on the 2001-2003 business plan, a strategy of lowering the costs and increasing the revenues has been applied. The range of waste collected has been extended from refrigerators only to all the type of WEEE. Prices for the treatment have been reduced with a resulting increase in the number of customers, in the amount of entering waste and in the geographic coverage for collection. Improvements in logistics, production and worker training also contributed to the general reduction of costs.

Fast progress 
At present AMIAT-TBD collects all the type of WEEE listed in the Ronchi Decree 22/1997 and in the recent EEC Directive 96/2002 of 27/01/2003. The regional collection coverage passed from 36% in year 2000 to 63% in year 2003. Customers and sales of recycled raw material are constantly increasing. Waste collection passed from 850 tonnes in 2000 to 2,240 tonnes in 2002, and forecast reaches 3,000 tonnes for 2003.

Besides, AMIAT-TBD :

• is a partner in a EEC research project on the treatment and exploitation of WEEE;
• started a cooperation with the Polytechnic of Turin for the engineering of the recovery process of CD and CD Rom raw materials; 
• planned the transfer, by the end of 2003, of the industrial unit in a new plant with a production capacity 4 times higher and a higher level of automation of the production process;
• has been pointed, from Archimede auditing company, as the potential WEEE collection and treatment pole of Vitalia Consortium that groups the waste collection companies of Torino, Genova, Firenze, Roma and Ancona. 

More information 

Promoting the social economy sector to the public

Since January 2003, a leaflet is disseminated in Brussels to promote second-hand, reuse and repair of textiles, furniture and electrical appliances. This is the first step of a campaign launched by the Brussels Institute for the Management of the Environment (IBGE-BIM). Information is also available on IBGE-BIM website. The various options available in Brussels for extending the useful life of products are identified. Enterprises that take back used items and sell second-hand goods are also listed. 

In addition the Belgian social label “Solid’R” is presented. This label is awarded to social economy enterprises dealing with reuse and recycling (clothes, leather, EEE…). This label has been developed by RESsources, the Belgian network of social enterprises in reuse and recycling. Solid’R is awarded by an independent organisation to enterprises that fulfil ethical and social criteria. These criteria refer to the reduction of waste, as well as the contribution of these enterprises to job creation for disadvantaged people and the support to development projects in Southern countries. 

More information

 


Return to "Promoting different waste management practices"