Gwendal Michel

ECOMAISON, France

Title: Ecomaison, the French Producer responsibility organisation that develops and improves circularity of post-consumer waste from household items : Illustration with ceramics and plastics

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Biography

Gwendal Michel is a microbiologist by training, specializing in molecular biology. He has been working in the waste and recycling industry for 23 years in various roles, ranging from waste collection to training and developing recycling processes for a wide variety of materials. He had the opportunity to work on projects involving the recycling of construction waste, expanded polystyrene from the packaging industry, and paper pulp rejects, with a focus on Tetrapak-type food packaging. Today, he is passionately initiating new recycling projects for his waste streams and all types of technologies (chemistry, biotechnology, mechanical recycling).

Abstract

Ecomaison is a French eco-organization (private non-profit company) approved by the French government to organize and manage the end-of-life waste of French citizens in four sectors: furniture, games and toys, DIY, and construction materials.

We collect, sort, recycle, and recover 1.6 million tons of waste per year. We currently have 12,000 members (companies that sell, distribute, or import products in France) and work with all private waste operators.

Ecomaison is developing a French recycling channel for post-consumer ceramic objects on behalf of four eco-organizations, covering sanitary ceramics, packaging, tableware, and flower pots. Various recycling methods are being considered for these ceramics, which are reduced to powder, with integration tests carried out in 25 companies in the plastics, cement, building materials and new ceramics industries.

Ecomaison is developing projects to integrate post-consumer recycled plastics from its own sources into its members' production processes, with examples currently being finalized in the production of toys from old polypropylene garden furniture. This project incorporates themes such as substances, resistance, and color with the aim of producing a resin that complies with the Toy Standard for our member toy manufacturer SMOBY.

Our goal is to develop recycling and material integration loops from our waste resources within our own ecosystem of members, with local production thanks to R&D projects that we finance. Every year, we issue new calls for R&D projects at all TRL levels in order to develop the recycling of our materials and promote new circularity loops.