New project: building a new circular value chain around the Rhône–Sète Canal ♻️

Nov 10, 2025
2 min read

The SEDI-CRS project has officially kicked off.

Objective: turn an environmental challenge into a territorial opportunity.

The Rhône–Sète Canal is a strategic link in France’s inland waterway network, serving both freight transport and water management.

The issue: every year, thousands of tonnes of sediments accumulate ❌

Today, they are mainly managed through landfilling or dredged material disposal — costly, unsustainable solutions that also undermine navigability.

Challenges that clearly resonate with us.

🎯 Our ambition :

Create an R&D ecosystem to establish a clear valorisation framework around the canal.
Maintain navigability through proactive, sustainable sediment management.
Replace landfill with the production of eco-materials for construction, landscaping and coastal protection.
Structure a local sediment valorisation value chain, anchored in inland waterway transport.
Reduce CO₂ emissions and the extraction of virgin resources.

🛠️ How will we do it?

1️⃣ Low-carbon logistics studies

2️⃣ Sediment characterisation

3️⃣ Laboratory eco-material formulation (👋 IMT Mines d'Alès)

4️⃣ Full-scale field testing

5️⃣ Dissemination of a replicable framework at regional level

🤝 A project led by the Région Auvergne–Rhône-Alpes, supported by the FEDER and the European Commission, and coordinated by Neo-Eco and Voies Navigables de France, with the support of Ea éco-entreprises, IMT Mines d’Alès and many local stakeholders, as well as the Provence–Alpes–Côte d’Azur and Occitanie Regional Councils through the “Méditerranée–Rhône–Saône” initiative.

With ERDF funding, SEDI-CRS is part of a broader European dynamic to: - Create new business models for low-carbon, competitive inland waterway transport, - Reduce greenhouse gas emissions linked to road logistics, - And create local, non-relocatable jobs.

Structuring local circular value chains to valorise sediments is not just a technical challenge — it’s a powerful lever for transition. And we’re proud to help drive it forward across the territory.

👉 Join us on this circular journey — updates coming soon.