Omelcom joins the club of virtuous eco-designers!
Omelcom has reduced its carbon footprint and that of its customers by replacing plastics from the petroleum industry with raw materials from the recycling industry.
In June 2021, Arnaud Jadoul reported in Usine Nouvelle that Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS) had been produced as an end product from recycling. The first 10 kilograms were produced in a German laboratory, and then in a factory in Belgium near Antwerp.
Only 18 months later, Omelcom, a French manufacturer of FTTH equipment, is creating a first generation of products incorporating recycled ABS in its Distri-Protect range of Optical Connection Points.
These are essentially the external parts and trays of the boxes intended for the deployment of the fiber.
This initiative is very important for a product that is sold in hundreds of thousands of units throughout Europe. It means that Omelcom can achieve a reduction of 500 g CO2eq for each of their flagship products.
Omelcom has achieved a 74% reduction in CO2 emissions during the production phase of internal parts and a 10% reduction in CO2 emissions of the whole product production. This is equivalent to the CO2 emitted by 90 passengers travelling from Paris to New York by plane, or by 7,5 trips around the world in motor vehicles !
“This technical innovation is part of the virtuous spiral of eco-design; the recycled material comes from the electronic product recycling chain. In addition, our recycled ABS supplier is based in our region, a few kilometers from our site,” explains Patrice Clerc, Project & Innovation Manager at Omelcom.
Odile Baron, Quality & CSR Manager at Omelcom, emphasizes the success of the tests carried out: “The technical data sheet of our recycled ABS supplier actually corresponds to the performance measured in the laboratory. There is no impact on the product’s lifespan because only the inner parts contain a proportion of the recycled material. The characteristics of the external parts with regard to water resistance and UV rays are unchanged. The REACH* compliance check also ensures that our products do not exceed the European levels for chemical substances.”
*REACH is a European Union regulation (1907/2006) that limits the levels of chemical substances in products.
Christophe Prévôt, President of Omelcom, is also delighted with the decarbonization actions initiated and led by his employees: “The whole company is proud and motivated to find solutions that will allow us to be in line with our CSR approach. With this innovation based on virtuous eco-design, we are gaining experience in the industrial circular economy and thus exceeding the requirements of some of our customers.”
