A disaster to be transformed into an opportunity
Guillaume Arnauld des Lions, went to Saint-Martin as part of the evaluation mission launched by the Federation of Nautical Industries to assess the situation of the industry after the passage of Hurricane Irma. If the compilation of data on the damage and urgent needs were the priority, he was not satisfied with the short term and began a process on the establishment of an industry of deconstruction of pleasure boats. "There are going to be wrecks to be treated quickly, but the establishment of a real local dismantling industry on the scale of the Caribbean arc is an issue that goes beyond post-cyclone management. It would also allow us to process the boats that leave the fleet locally. To this end, we have begun an audit on the number of boats to be treated outside the hurricane context."
List the operators and accompany them
During his mission, Guillaume Arnauld des Lions made contact with all the approved waste treatment sites capable of deconstructing boats in Saint-Martin, but also in Guadeloupe and Martinique. He was able to find out that Verde, in charge of waste management in Saint-Martin, has equipped itself with a shredder allowing it to process large parts from boats.
Once identified, the companies will benefit from the support of APER, an organization launched by the FIN with the aim of becoming the eco-organization in charge of the EPR sector of dismantling in the nautical sector. They will be advised on the standards to be respected, the necessary equipment and will be able to become approved by APER. They will then benefit from APER's network, as do the many approved sites in mainland France. The association currently redirects between 3 and 10 requests for deconstruction daily to its approved network.
To quote a popular proverb, we can think that "to something, bad is good!" We can hope that Hurricane Irma will give rise to a virtuous ecological approach in West Indian boating.
