Toulouse: this start-up helps communities identify illegal dumps
The Toulouse start-up SGEvT (general society for the evaluation of territories), created in 2018 following the Grenelle de l’Environnement, provides local authorities with the tracking of wild deposits by satellite.
How to identify isolated wild dumps, in mountainous or difficult to access areas? How to prevent these deposits of dangerous products from permanently polluting the soil and rivers? What are the target of metal trafficking?
The company SGEvT, created in 2018, provides local authorities with a service for tracking illegal deposits. They are about fifteen engineers, in offices close to Jean-Jaurès, in Toulouse. On their screens, the Pléiades satellites send images in real time, with a precision of 50 cm, at the request of the territories.
Recently, the SGEvT company delivered images of wild dumps, over an area of 400 km², pre-targeted by the police in the Aude department.
Images of Pleiades satellites
“We identify with everything, rubble, metal, fabric, furniture. Sometimes, those who deposit waste go so far as to dig pits several meters deep,” explains Arnaud André, co-founder of the company.
“Our algorithms detect wild deposits with a reliability greater than 90%. Many of them are hidden by the relief, the vegetation. We produce detailed sheets for each depot, with their size, we calculate their accessibility, the proximity of a watercourse potentially vulnerable to pollution, etc”.
Deposits from 50 m2 of surface
“We detect deposits from 50 to 100 m², which is really not large for a wild deposit. The goal is to go quickly, to locate the deposit very early, so that the forces of order can find clues, papers allowing to confuse the authors of the first deposit. Otherwise, the layers of objects accumulate, and the evidence disappears”, specifies Sébastien Le Corre, in charge of research and development at SGEvT.
From 750€ to 3000€ fine in case of illegal deposit
The SGEvT solution is based on images from the Pléiades satellites, in collaboration with Cnes. It processes them using artificial intelligence and disseminates information to users. The distribution to public services showed the reliability of the deposits identified on the intervention sheets, corroborated 100% by field interventions, according to the company.
“The goal is to convince as many communities as possible. Waste manufacturers are also identified. »
The fact of abandoning waste or constituting an illegal deposit of waste can be, depending on the case, a 4th (750 € maximum) or 5th class fine (1,500 € maximum, 3,000 € in the event of a repeat offence) or an offense.