2024-03-24 14:30:00
Every year, tons of waste are gently discharged into the seas and oceans… The majority comes from land and more specifically from hydraulic networks.
Although Vinci Autoroutes was concerned quite early on with the problem of collecting waste leaving its outlets, at the time, its grid system was not satisfactory. The process was regularly clogged and the affair ended with a pure and simple obstruction of its hydraulic pipes…
Diversion of trawl nets
Here is how, as part of a call for environmental projects in 2010, a young start-up created by Cannes resident Stéphane Asikian will develop a different technique.
“I had in mind these fish nets used on trawls. We diverted the concept to adapt it to the environmental objective set,” explains the business manager at the head of Pollustock, based in Mandelieu.
If the resistance parameter of tailor-made nets is validated in two years, with meshes made of polypropylene or almost indestructible synthetic fibers, it will take much more to succeed in avoiding “blockages” at the outlet of the networks and meet all the challenges in safety matters, particularly at the time of collection near the nozzles. Vinci will wait as long as necessary.
“The concept finally came to fruition in 2020 thanks to a safety system which guarantees evacuation of flows even when the nets are full. Shopping carts, bicycles, tires, rubble… we really find everything. Then it is up to us to separate these waste manually and it is up to the customer to landfill it because, at the moment, recycling is not possible, although we are actively working on it!”specifies Stéphane Asikian.
Up to 8 tonnes per net
After the ten examples in operation on the A8 motorway between Cannes and Nice, six new nets have just been installed along the outlets of the A8 motorway in Var while a total of 600 weave its “web” in France.
Pollustock’s know-how does not stop on motorway roads, with other applications linked to rainwater networks, storm overflows, etc. Its range of nets is available for recoveries ranging from the “25 kilo” model to the T-Rex, “waste predator”, which can hold up to 8 tons!
“This is what is used for large hydraulic works like the Casablanca rainwater outlet,” specifies Stéphane Asikian whose company is also developing on a European scale.
Start-up de la blue tech
Other variations with filter baskets in coated canvas to be placed under the drain grids found in car parks, in our streets or along the roadsides.
A guarantee that Pollustock is on the right track, it is among the 35 “best start-ups” of the very first “French blue tech Index” unveiled at the end of 2023, supposed to protect the maritime sector and praised by President Macron.
A model that risks attracting desire… “Patents have been filed, but beyond that, being copied on certain points will be great recognition. Proof that we were right!”concludes Stéphane Asikian, who sees a virtue in the fact of finally “talk more about solutions than problems”.
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