Turning non-recyclable waste into stone

“Here, we transform non-recyclable waste, such as plastic bags, old shoes, into stones”. Since 2019, Nicolas Cruaud, co-founder of Néolithe and his two other associates have been fossilizing industrial waste to avoid their incineration or burial, which are responsible for a significant release of CO2. “We come up with a third solution, fossilization, which really aims to stop landfilling and incineration, to stop emitting so much CO2 and, in addition, to sequester carbon, so to of these small pebbles, carbon sinks”says Nicolas Cruaud.

Avoid 5000 tons of CO2 per year

On their Chalonnes-sur-Loire site, the start-up has 180 employees. Néolithe is trying to deploy fossilizers, which would make it possible to process, per plant, nearly 10,000 tonnes of waste per year and avoid 5,000 tonnes of CO2 per year, the equivalent of planting 200,000 trees.

After grinding the waste to obtain flour, it passes through a mixer to obtain apaste, which will be transformed into small aggregates. “After a week, we have aggregates that are about as resistant as natural aggregates, which are really hard, and we can build on them. We use it to make roads, concrete. Concrete is cement, sand and pebbles. We replace the pebble in there. Pebbles, we consume 450 million tons per year in France. So after water, it is the most used resource”. For the time being, Néolithe focuses solely on industrial waste. In the future, the company would like to act on household waste, the other half of the waste deposit in France, ie 15 million tonnes per year, which is mainly incinerated and buried. “Si tomorrow we will manage to treat household waste in addition to the waste that we manage to treat today, the potential on the scale of France is a reduction of about 7% of French CO2 emissions . That is considerable. The government has announced a 30% reduction in our emissions by 2030. We can contribute 7%”, adds Nicolas Cruaud.