CIRCULAR ECONOMY - CECI Team visits in Marseille, DAY 1
With France currently holding the European Presidency, nearly forty participants from all over Europe set out on Tuesday 3 and Wednesday 4 May 2022 in Marseille to discover innovative companies in the field of the circular economy.
- CECI mission → to bring good practices in terms of citizen involvement in the circular economy.
- CECI banner → the INTERREG project, "Circular Economy and Citizen Involvement" (CECI), of which the Southern Region is a stakeholder.
- CECI motto → the circular economy, I agree!
See the video summary of the Visits in Marseille and all the photos.
DAY 1: 3.5.2022
SYNCHRONICITY, the 1st cooperative hub of the circular economy
"Hello everyone, welcome to the HQ, a place that brings together expertise, resources and innovations", explains the co-founder of SYNCHRONICITY. Bicycles hanging from the ceiling, a machine to recycle plastic, 3D printers, when you enter the premises you immediately understand that the objective, with his right-hand man Vincent, is to put environmental issues at the centre of the game.
Today, more than twenty actors federated by the start-up are based at the "HQ" around the issues of recycling, waste treatment or the fight against pollution. The CECI team had the pleasure of discovering the presentations of Wings of the Ocean (waste collection and sensibilisation), Plastic Odyssey (plastic collection) or Raedificare (building materials reuse).
SYNCHRONICITY's "Logistics Hub 3.0"
A place that symbolizes the collection and recovery of waste from professionals in Marseille's inner city. "To carry out these operations, we create jobs. We need people to explain to shopkeepers the right sorting gesture, cyclo-logistics operators to come and collect the waste and industrial partners able to recycle what has been collected".
VEOLIA, a sorting centre in the heart of the Terrasses du Port
In this den of consumerism and its 190 brands that " Les Terrasses du Port" houses a sorting centre designed to process all the waste dumped each day by the various shops. "We are a group committed to this approach and we also support projects in the region that reflect these values," explains Hervé Pernot, Director of Development for the Southern Region of VÉOLIA. While sorting is easy to do, changing mentalities is not easy.
REV'MOBILITIES, car conversion as a solution
The vintage cars and the "retrofitted" city bus are waiting for the group, all bonnets out.
"Retrofitting", explains a member of the team, "is not a body-building device but an action that consists in transforming any type of vehicle with a thermal engine, petrol or diesel, into an electric one.
Cars, buses, motorbikes, trucks, even boats; a real solution for clean mobility in the spirit of the circular economy so as not to destroy, but to rehabilitate vehicles in perfect running order. "The CECI visit o is a great opportunity to convince town halls, regions and countries to have a decarbonization ambition and to save vehicles, jobs and, above all, our lives", Arnaud Pigounidè argues.
SUPER CAFOUTCH, the consumers' supermarket
The VIDEO Supercafoutch
They order products, do the cleaning, run the cash register, receive deliveries, manage the administration and are the only ones who can buy these same products. Who are they? The seven hundred cooperators of SUPER CAFOUTCH, of course. "We favor short circuits, local products and zero waste, and all our products are less expensive than those of the large-scale distributors", says Hélène Cochet-Hache, a cooperative member of SUPER CAFOUTCH.
Alongside the basic necessities, there are superfluous products, but these become essential when it comes to discussing subjects such as sustainable food, or around workshops on seasonal products to raise people's awareness of the food of tomorrow. "Here, we create a link between consumers and local producers while helping to raise everyone's awareness of the path from the earth to the plate," concludes the young woman.
LE REP', solidarity gastronomy as a standard - French-style cuisine, served at the table, friendly, sophisticated.
"We are here in a mythical place of Marseille's gastronomy and we have chosen to take it up around two axes: the integration of people with the apprenticeship of French gastronomy, in the dining room or in the kitchen, and one-euro meals for people who can't afford the classic rates", explains Sylvain Martin, co-founder of Le REP' and Vice-President of the Association La Petite Lili. If the "main" idea is to bring together people from different social classes in the same place, the restaurant is very attached to the problems of sustainable food, as Sébastien Richard, the founder of REP', explains: "We source our products locally, in the terroir, and we are extremely vigilant about the waste generated."
