​SEDISEINE

Client: Paris-Le Havre-Rouen commercial port

Scientific partner: Neo-Eco

Location: Moulineaux-Grand-Couronne and Anneville-Ambourville ‘loop’, Normandy, France

Delivered in: December 2025

 

Reusing of river sediment near Rouen, in civil engineering (road sub-base layers) and agriculture, three years after marine sediment reusing near Le Havre (SEDINNOVE). Silt sediment radically changes the structure hence water/nutrient retention of formerly unproductive sandy plots: +20–30% yields, new crops enabled. A truly breakthrough innovation for farmers.

 

Through both economic applications, the port’s plan was to optimise sediment management and revenues, while benefiting the local area and structuring new value chains. This implied (1) building tangible off-takers interest and (2) shaping a competitive commercial offering.

 

To this end, Inecko reached out to the 12 civil engineering and groundworks companies that had shown interest, and to all 20 local farmers. We established this entirely new connection between logistics and farming industries, collected individual and operational feedback, triggered strong interest from the two markets, sized those, evidenced economic benefits and recommended ways to optimise those, for both the port and local area.

 

Specifically, we have:

 

• Established and modelled production costs, revenue and profitability, for 1 input material and 2 recycled end products – 20 000 t annual capacity, EUR 77k revenue, 8% EBITDA margin

• Sized 2 target markets on a 10 and 40 km radius

• Secured market uptake in collaboration with regional off-takers and stakeholders (groundwork and sediment management provider Chamber of Agriculture, quarries, Council and Mayor of the most relevant town), prior to providing strategic, operational and marketing recommendations including risk analysis

• Quantified and interpreted economic outcomes (direct, indirect – jobs, wages, revenue, value added, tax), derived local perspectives e.g. average local turnover or wages

• Assessed long-term regional development impacts (innovation capacities, skills, ecosystems) and advised on their enhancement

• Collected quantitative and qualitative primary data via 12 hours of interviews with 32 respondents, follow-up outreach, and 2 online surveys (6 respondents)

 

 

And now? (as of Sept. 2026)

 

A second application was carried out on a maize field, further refining spreading techniques, pending publication of a standardised protocol by the national environmental expertise agency. Of the 20 farmers contacted, 8 are interested, 5 of them strongly, along with 12 of the 79 civil engineering companies. The port already sells silt sediment to the civil engineering sector and is ready to produce around 20,000 t a year.