Industrial ecology is a notion and a recent practice of environment management aimed at limiting the impacts of industry on the environment. In concrete terms, it involves all of the practices intended to reduce industrial pollution.
Years of over-production, overconsumption and ingestion in treating waste have transformed the earth into a huge open-air landfill site.
Pesticides, plastic residues, heavy metals and hydrocarbons are found in our soils, rivers and oceans poisoning our planet’s fauna and flora.
The time for alarming observations has past, it’s time for action.
The fundamental principle of industrial ecology is an optimisation at the level of company groups, territories, industries … of energy and material consumption, a minimisation of waste at source and a re-use of waste to be used as raw materials for other production processes.
The factors for a successful industrial symbiosis are those of any natural system:
- Diversity
So that it is the most effective possible, company activities must be different and complementary, so as to use the largest amount of waste as resources for another
- Proximity
It goes without saying that to respect the principle of an ecosystem the waste resources must be treated and used locally.
- Cooperation
To allow the implementation of symbiosis, companies and their directors must develop, among parties, relations marked by cooperation, communication and mutual trust.
The Wilmet Group is making this ecological approach its hobby horse.
Our aim in the medium term is to become a reputed player in the local management of the flow of incoming & outgoing materials within a short cycle.
To be able to provide our expertise in sorting, collecting, transforming and shipping these “recycled raw materials”.
To create synergies between neighbouring companies to find shared solutions in terms of energy consumption and material flow.
To allow companies to tackle the problem of waste head on by accompanying them in the different management processes.
Such are the future challenges of the Wilmet Group in the coming months and years.
