Vision
WHERE WE ARE HEADING
Climate change, depletion of natural resources, soil degradation, energy sovereignty, and reindustrialisation are just some of the challenges facing today’s society — challenges that we aim to address through our core activities: waste collection, recycling, green energy (generated from our waste) and returning organic matter to the earth through composting.
The intuition that led to the creation of Paprec proved to be right: waste has become the raw material of this century. Recovering it in the form of materials or energy saves natural resources and limits CO₂ emissions, thereby helping to decarbonise industry and combat climate change.
As advocates of the circular economy, we are involved in every stage of the recovery cycle. We begin with waste collection, followed by material recycling — one of our core areas of expertise — where we have already become one of Europe’s leading players. Next comes recovery and the production of green energy, an area in which we have also become a major European operator. The third cycle is organic recovery: returning material back to the earth. In this still-developing sector, we have been recognised as pioneers by the European Commission.
OUR ORIGINS
“A 21st-century industry for a greener planet.”
Jean-Luc Petithuguenin, Founder
Within the framework of a sustainable global economy, recycling will become increasingly important. In addition to providing a solution to a pressing environmental issue, recycling is also an economically viable activity.
It is no coincidence that more than half of the world’s paper is produced from recycled paper rather than virgin pulp. Nor is it by chance that the global steel industry relies heavily on recycled scrap metal instead of solely on newly extracted natural resources, and that recycled plastics have now become a priority for the worldwide plastics industry. Manufacturers realised this long ago, and industries have since organised themselves accordingly, driving recyclers to continuously improve their expertise in order to produce raw materials that meet increasingly demanding specifications.
By the end of the 20th century, recycling had become an industrial business requiring major investment — with more than €1.5 billion invested in our facilities — in order to meet the innovative challenges involved in processing an ever more diverse range of waste.
Recycling has a bright future ahead of it. It will become one of the leading industries of the 21st century. It will create hundreds of thousands of jobs worldwide, shape the global raw materials markets, and make a major contribution to the environmental debate.
For us, recycling is not a temporary response to an environmental emergency, but rather the best way to make full use of resources that will, at last, no longer be wasted, for the benefit of future generations.
Our other environmental initiatives share the same objective: to continue building a greener planet, as we all hope and aspire to do. Our employees are proud to be part of this industrial and human adventure. The trust placed in us by our clients, many of whom have worked with us for years, is our greatest achievement.
Thank you all for supporting the development of a leader in this global industry that is being reinvented every single day.
