The La Fouillouse-based industrialist is (again) preparing new investments. In addition to its €25 million plan to invest in its production facilities, announced last year, it will create a €20 million plastic sorting center and invest €5 million in solar panels and wood-fired boilers.
Desjoyaux continues to invest in its La Fouillouse site. Last summer, CEO Jean-Louis Desjoyaux told La Tribune-Le Progrès of his XXL investment plan worth 25 million euros.
On the menu: machines, molds, a new very large press, optimized traffic flows, automated transport within the site, creation of a new R&D building, new refectories, and more.
The overall objective is to enable the plant to comfortably produce some 20,000 basins per year, compared with the current 15,000. The La Fouillouse-based manufacturer has decided to add yet another piece to the investment machine. Energy and recycling are at the heart of this new round of spending.
A new 20 million euro plastic sorting center
Jean-Louis Desjoyaux mentioned it in our interview last August, with an investment project of a few million euros, but it turned out to be much more substantial. A total of 20 million euros has been budgeted for the construction of a plastic sorting center. Indeed, a proportion of Desjoyaux pool structures and their various components are made from recycled plastic materials. These materials are currently supplied by recycling channels, already sorted, for on-site grinding and extrusion by Desjoyaux.
The aim of this sorting center is to move up the value chain by sorting directly on site to separate polyethylene from polypropylene. Between 5,000 and 6,000 tonnes will be sorted each year at La Fouillouse using an automated optical sorting system, then shredded, washed with industrial water, dried and extruded for reuse in the company’s swimming pools or plastic pallets, for example.
“The investment, which also includes a wastewater treatment plant, will pay for itself in around ten years,” explains Jean-Louis Desjoyaux. Some fifteen new recruits will be involved.
The sorting center, housed in a new 5,500 m² building, will be entirely covered with photovoltaic cells, which should make the facility totally self-sufficient in energy. Planning permission is expected shortly.
Three wood-fired boilers to cut energy bills
At the same time, the company will be investing around 5 million euros in the installation of three wood-fired boilers. “In two or three years’ time, these boilers, together with the photovoltaic panels, should enable us to do without gas and electricity almost completely”, says the manager. It has to be said that the bill is becoming increasingly expensive: this year, Desjoyaux’s energy bill represents almost 1.5 million euros.
Article published in LE PROGRES on 28/03/2023
Journalist Stéphanie GALLO TRIOULEYRE