Developing paper recycling and back-to-work activity in Western Brittany

"I have been accompanying Solidarité Papier for three years with the aim of optimizing the upgrading of the paper and cardboard that they collect. If this activity were to disappear, the Veolia Environmental Services structures could not take up all the materials collected, because they often come in small quantities, and we do not have the tools in the Finistère to make such a meticulous sorting. This incurs the risk that the paper will be disposed of as waste. If Solidarité Papier grows, it will expand its partnership with Veolia Environmental Services: the Quimper agency does not have an upgrading center and sends a large part of its materials to Brest."

Gilles Regnard

The nonprofit AGEHB (Animation et Gestion pour l'Emploi et l'Hébergement en Bretagne) was created in 1981 to receive and assist people in difficulty to recover or to improve their capacity for self-sufficiency by all suitable means, around five core issues: accommodation, reception and mutual aid, housing, health, work. To guide their beneficiaries toward training and employment by making them fit for work, the work issue sparked the launch of the Solidarité Papier back-to-work project. This agency collects, sorts and packages paper and cardboard, destroys archives and produces animal litter. It promotes professional and social integration by learning to work in a team and proposes jobs on various workstations: truck driver, chauffer, ripper, forklift operator, machinist, sorter, designated agent for the destruction of confidential archives, loading agent. It employs 18 men and women aged over 50 and collects more than 1 200 tons of paper per year from companies and municipalities in the Finistère and Morbihan districts.

A new chopper for new outlets and more jobs

Faced in particular with the decline in aid receipts, Solidarité Papier is looking for new ways to finance new back-to-work jobs. Gilles Régnard (Granjouan Saco), sponsor of the project, who has been tracking the agency for three years, found that one of the materials produced (white office paper, with black print), properly sorted and processed into strips using a chopper, could be more suitable for the consumption of certain paper mills, which could buy it at a significantly higher price. For the project, this means the opportunity to create three additional back-to-work jobs (five-year CUI-CAE contracts) and to generate additional income, making its activities last.