Careful and conscious collection is the best way to give new life to plastic. In addition to the best-known recyclates that are now part of our lives (how warm our fleece is in winter), I.BLU - an Iren Group Company - uses innovative and patented processes to sort the collected mixed plastics and recycle them into Circular Raw Materials.

It is a Secondary Raw Material, derived from sorting, treatment and recycling processes of post-consumer plastics otherwise destined for disposal, used as a reducing agent in steel production to replace coal.

The advantages of its use are manifold: reduction of CO2 emissions by more than 35% compared to the use of other plastics; reduction in the use of carbon in industrial processes, increased production process efficiency and increased recycling of plastics.

It is a Secondary Raw Material, derived from sorting, treatment and recycling processes of post-consumer plastics otherwise destined for disposal.

Used in the production of high-performance asphalts, construction, industrial, automotive, urban and residential products and used in the production of roads, industrial areas, logistics centres and airports. There are several advantages of its use in the industry: it increases the strength and durability of the asphalt, promotes the creation of urban areas with less environmental impact.

Every year, around 50 million wooden pallets are produced in Italy. They represent the most commonly used packaging for the transport and storage of goods, and account for more than half of the packaging produced by the wood industry.

The recycled wood pallet production plant of ASM Vercelli S.p.A. - Company of the Iren Group, it will be the first plant in Italy for the production of pressed pallets from recycled wood coming exclusively from separate waste collection.

By avoiding the felling and cutting down of 115,000 trees each year, and by continuing to make significant use of the wood fractions from waste sorting, 110,000 tonnes of wood per year converted into pallets and pallet blocks can be achieved when fully operational.

The pressed pallet has infinite reusability and recyclability and has a structure that guarantees greater resistance to deformation.

Compared to traditional pallet blocks (made from the valuable part of the tree trunk, i.e. virgin wood), pallet blocks have greater resistance to nails and deformation, as well as a lower production cost. When fully operational, ASM Vercelli's plant will be able to produce up to 750,000 pallets and approximately 135,000 cubic metres of pallet blocks annually.

Would you like to discover all the advantages of the pressed pallet and pallet block?

Every year, 5 million mattresses are discarded in Italy, which is equivalent to 21 thousand tonnes of polyurethane destined so far only for disposal. Thanks to innovative recycling processes, the collected and sorted materials are reintroduced into the market as Secondary Raw Materials fully comparable to virgin polyurethane.

A new material consisting of polyurethane foam derived from the agglomeration of the waste components of upholstered products. Your old mattress thus becomes recycled and recyclable several times. The benefits on our planet can be measured in 21,000 tonnes of CO2 saved each year, because also our planet is entitled to a good night's sleep!

Would you like to know more about the transformation of used mattresses into second raw material?

It is possible to produce well and make better use of the energy we need. More than 74% of the energy the Iren Group produces is green. Hydroelectricity, cogeneration, waste-to-energy are part of our history. Decarbonisation, renewables, photovoltaics, biomethane, high efficiency and energy upgrading are the words of our present and future. Attention is also paid to the management of facilities and services, without forgetting that energy can also come from regeneration processes, thanks to an energy-efficient circular economy.

We are proud of who we are and who we will be.

Water purifiers can turn into “springs”: factories of quality water that regenerate waste water to allow for a new use.

This is what happens at the Iren plant in Mancasale (Reggio Emilia), one of the first built in Italy and now completely renovated. A state-of-the-art water purification plant with an advanced tertiary treatment system delivers 7 billion litres of water each year (from March to September) to the area's valuable crops. A concrete response to the increasingly frequent periods of drought and an opportunity to save resources, because the recovered water is distributed by gravity using the network of canals of the Reclamation, thus avoiding the pumping of more water from the Po river. A plant that is also a Park: the PAD, Purified Water Park, an eco-industrial area with an inclusive visitor route.

In its Business Plan @2030, Iren plans to double the plant's flow rate and with it the amount of water delivered, with an investment of 4 million euro: from 7 million cubic metres of water recovered per year, this will rise to 14 million directly usable in agriculture during the irrigation season.

Would you like to find out more about the Mancasale waste water treatment plant?