Cœur vert

Project overview

From rehabilitating disused areas…

© Agence TER

© Agence TER

The Coeur vert project is designed to facilitate the rehabilitation of abandoned and polluted areas. It extends over 300 hectares in the Seine loop (encompassing the municipalities of Triel-sur-Seine, Chanteloup-les-Vignes, Carrières-sous-Poissy and Andrésy).

For around 100 years, these areas were irrigated with untreated water from the City of Paris and its suburbs, polluting the soil with lead and cadmium. Market gardening was brought to a halt there in 1999 by a ban on growing vegetables or aromatic plants, whether for sale or not (prefectoral order of 28 July 1999). Until recently, the plain was thus left fallow and became an open, untended area subject to fly-tipping (roughly 400 tonnes of waste) and squatting.

… to the emergence of an eco-innovative business

The Coeur vert project has set out to rehabilitate disused areas of the plain by setting up projects to grow industrial crops (agro-materials and biomass). This will recycle the fallow land and fuel new eco-materials and eco-construction industries developing in the region. Coeur vert is an integral part of the loop’s green fabric.

Close-up

The Coeur vert project is aimed at setting up a business line with a future: biomaterials. The CA2RS is currently working towards creating a new local industry by growing miscanthus. This plant, which is known for its resistance and its ability to rehabilitate polluted land, can also be used in eco-construction and bioplastics.

An area of 150ha – half of the plain’s surface area – has been set aside for growing miscanthus. To establish a link with the neighbouring urban areas and create a true patchwork of plant species, the peripheral areas are sown with grasses and other plants, and the entire plain is crisscrossed with hedges, small woods and former orchards. The ecological fabric connects up the sensitive natural area beside the Seine and the southern Hautil wood in the north, and the two banks of the Seine loop from east to west.

Timeline:

  • In 2010, an experimental 8ha plot of land was planted in the Chanteloup-les-Vignes municipality, along the RD22 road. In all, 144,000 miscanthus rhizomes were planted out and 90km of underground drip irrigation network were installed.
  • In 2010, the EAFRD fund financed the installation of the drip irrigation system.
  • In 2012, the CA2RS was a partner in the “Biomass for the Future” project, which won the “Biotechnologies and bioresources” call for proposals launched in connection with the French government’s “Grand emprunt” loan. This research project has set out to study each link in the miscanthus production chain, from the pre-production to the post-production stages, with a view to improving productivity.
  • In 2013, work will begin on the first tranche of the Coeur vert project: 57 hectares will be cleared, reclaimed and sown with flowering prairie plants; an irrigation system will be installed and hedges planted (co-financed to the value of 25% by the Ile-de-France region as part of the Grand Projet 3, and by the EAFRD under the Leader Seine Aval programme).

Contact the beneficiary

+33 (0)1 34 01 24 40

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