French environmental services concern Suez plans to build and operate six collection and sorting centres for post-consumer plastic waste in Shanghai with partner Taichu Environmental Resource Management. Suez announced late last week that the companies had signed a contract setting out the framework for their investment in the new joint venture. Suez noted that this would be its first plastics recovery project in China.
According to the French group, the new facilities it will build with Taichu will have a capacity of 30,000 tonnes per year and incorporate artificial intelligence and intelligent information systems to enable end-to-end traceability. The collection and sorting centres are to be completed by early 2024.
In the same press release, Suez announced that it would invest around €160m (RMB1.25bn) together with Chongqing Water Group in the construction of new water treatment plant. The contracts were announced in connection with a visit to China by Suez CEO Sabrina Soussan.
Suez has been active in the Chinese market for 50 years. In Shanghai, it already operates one of Asia’s largest incineration facilities for hazardous waste.
New CFO to be named
Suez also announced last week that CFO Thomas Devedjian will be leaving the group as of 31 October "to seize a new opportunity with a large financial institution". Prior to joining Suez in May 2022, Mr Devedjian had been CFO at the mining and metals company Eramet. He was appointed to the initial executive committee of the "new Suez" following the spin-off and reformation of the business resulting from the "old" Suez/Veolia merger. Sabrina Soussan thanked Mr Devedjian "for his contribution to the set-up and development of Suez these last 18 months," and wished him every success. His successor will be named "soon", according to the environmental services group.
