WASTE RECOVERY & RECYCLING

Investments in existing and new waste sorting, recovery and recycling facilities in Belgium and the Netherlands.

The new and upgraded waste treatment plants will increase treatment capacity and materials and energy recovery from commercial and industrial (C&I) waste, and decrease environmental and climate change impact.

The project aims to increase the material recovery from commercial & industrial (C&I) waste and enhancing energy recovery from biogas, fully meeting the Bank's Paris Alignment criteria. The project contributes to the EIB's objective of (i) Sustainable energy and natural resources, by increasing circularity in waste management, and (ii) Innovation, digital and human capital, by using advanced sorting technology combined with artificial intelligence and digitalization to significantly improve the recovery and recycling of secondary raw materials from waste as compared to current practice in the sector and of the promoter. The project is thereby supporting EU, national and regional policy objectives, in particular the circular economy transition, decarbonization and innovation.

The project addresses the market failure of insufficient investment in waste recycling and the circular economy transition in the EU. It also addresses the failure of financial markets for RDI investments arising from a higher cost of financing for the deployment of innovative technologies. The project components will generate positive environmental and climate externalities in particular by reducing emissions and climate change impact associated with incinerating plastics and other fossil materials. By offering waste generators and collectors regulatory compliant options for residual C&I waste treatment, and by enabling new market players to recycle materials extracted in the new project facilities, the project also completes missing market links in waste treatment and recycling. Finally, the project will help to further develop relevant knowledge, skills and competences, strengthen the promoter's technology edge and expand collaboration with its technology suppliers and its clients thereby generating significant positive knowledge externalities.

EIB's involvement will provide a highly flexible financial product to the borrower, allowing it to diversify its financing sources, lengthen the average maturity of its existing debt and strengthen its overall financial position. The promoter has benefitted from technical assistance provided by the EIB with respect to climate resilience and vulnerability assessment for some project components.

The new and upgraded waste treatment and recycling plants will decrease environmental and climate change impacts by: 1) increasing recovery of materials from C&I waste, thereby reducing the amount of waste incinerated or landfilled; and 2) converting biogas produced in an existing AD plant into bio-methane for injection into the natural gas grid and transport to an BioLNG facility, while at the same time increasing the plant's treatment capacity by 10%. The investments contribute to meeting the targets for recycling and diversion of waste from incineration and landfill disposal and enable increased recovery of recyclable materials from C&I waste and some increased energy recovery from organic waste.

The promoter has been assessed by the EIB as being a private company not subject to EU rules on public procurement or concessions, something that will be verified during appraisal.