Etude de faisabilité pour le lancement d'une nouvelle activité visant à réutiliser les chutes de polycarbonate dans un contexte d'économie circulaire

Abstract

Plastic waste is harmful to the environment and disrupts wildlife. It is therefore extremely important to collect them for recycling. Until today, it was China that dealt mainly with this waste. Recently, this country has decided to refuse Western waste to focus on theirs. In Belgium, there is no recycling center for polycarbonate and PMMA. The company DHK treats these plastics every day and that is why it has decided to open a new division that recycles them: Ecovery. At the beginning, this work was aimed at reducing CO2 emissions from the transport of goods to the Italian customer in the context of the circular economy. The project began by defining the concept of circular economy so that it can be included in the work. Then, an analysis of the activity was conducted to validate or redefine this problem. To this end, a carbon footprint and a profitability analysis have been drawn up. Although it shows that the activity is barely profitable, the impact on the environment is already substantial. The initial problem was therefore modified to take into account the profitability aspect while aiming at a circular economy project. Two avenues have been considered: increasing the price of the product and increasing the quantity produced. To increase the price, the project investigated the possibility of adding value to the product by transforming it but this was not feasible. It has therefore been decided to turn to a closer customer who offers a better price for polycarbonate. The PMMA is stored for later supply to a recycling project in line with the circular economy. In order to increase the quantity, a supplier approach was undertaken and the visibility of Ecovery was improved. To quantify the impact of this project, the carbon footprint and the profitability analysis have been updated. In 2019, € 74,584.56 in revenues are expected compared to € 24,717.6 in 2018, an increase of nearly 300%. Regarding the environmental impact, 181T CO2 e should be saved in 2019 thanks to the activity of Ecovery. According to California Air Resources Board (2007), 610,000 m² of fir trees would absorb the same amount of CO2. In 2019, the impact of Ecovery on the environment in terms of CO2e emissions avoided can therefore be compared to the quantity that would have been transformed by of 151 acres of forest, 35 more than the previous year.