Val'Up Plastic and Packaging Waste sorting centre in Mons;
Credit: Jan De Nul
On Wednesday 11 May 2022, Jan De Nul Group, an engineering firm with its financial headquarters in Luxembourg, officially inaugurated the new Val'Up Plastic and Packaging Waste sorting centre in Mons, Belgium.
This "design-and-build" contract worth €38 million was awarded at the end of 2019 by Val'Up, the association of inter-municipal companies Idéa and Ipalle and private companies specialised in environmental services Veolia and Vanheede, to Consortium Jan De Nul-Vauché. The centre meets the changed plastic and packaging waste sorting rules introduced in Belgium in January 2019.
Improved sorting is a condition for more efficient recycling. To enable the recycling of still more plastic waste, Val'Up built a brand new sorting centre in Mons, where 5,000 bags per hour of plastic and packaging waste can be processed and fourteen different types of different types of material can be sorted.
In the form of a design-and-build project, Consortium Jan De Nul-Vauché offered everything from the design and realisation of an innovative sorting installation to the complete centre around it. The sorting installation also played the leading role during the whole building process: every change to the sorting process impacted the building plans.
The centre, which has been operational since the summer of 2021, was officially inaugurated on Wednesday in the presence of Elio Di Rupo, Minister-President of Wallonia.
Dirk Van Rompaey, Head Civil Engineering Division at Jan De Nul Group, commented: "Building the sorting centre was a first for us: we took care not only of the construction works, but also of designing the sorting installation. Our ingenious ideas and inventive solutions convinced the client of our expertise. We are particularly proud of having built a completely new sorting centre, a true example for the sector, in hardly a year’s time. We can look back positively on an instructive period with our partner Vauché and our client Val'Up".
