The ReLife circularity model is customer-centred. ReLife offers a waste collection service fully compliant with the law, at low costs and with minimal environmental impact, by capitalising on the ability to seek new markets and environmentally sustainable equipment. ReLife decided to become an integral part of the value chain to supply new boxes and plastic made from the waste they produce in return to customers.
THE COMPANY HISTORY
The history of ReLife starts from a far, beginning in the 1950s with simple and very basic tools developing over the years with a focus on paper collection. Work in the field of collection and recycling of materials was later consolidated with the diffusion of the consumer society, which multiplied the amounts of produced urban and industrial waste.
The ReLife project was born in 2014 to disseminate the recycling culture. The new management, supported by the Private Equity Fund Xenon, expanded the network through acquisitions and extended its range of action to the entire country.
The Group is an exception on the Italian scene, where family-run businesses are the rule, merging eight companies in just two years, from 2015 to 2016, to provide and guarantee comprehensive environmental service throughout the northwest of Italy.
The further development in horizontal and vertical integration processes in 2018 led to the merge with the recycling paper and cardboard manufacturer Cartiera Bosco Marengo to maximize value in the recycling chain.
In 2019, Alia Servizi Ambientali SpA and ReLife SpA set up ReAl Srl, a mixed public-private company for paper and cardboard recycling in Tuscany, creating a new supply chain strongly directed towards the development of the circular economy in the most important paper hub in Europe.
This year was the turning point. The dream that had started in 2013 became an industrial reality with the acquisition of several box factories and a major recycler of LDPE plastic film, European leader for several products, to bring the circular economy to fruition within the perimeter of the company.
ReLife achieves industrial integration through a network of facilities operating within 4 production units: Recycling, Paper Mill, Paper Packaging, Plastic Packaging.
F2i Fondo per le Infrastrutture Sostenibili is now investing in the circular economy sector through the ReLife Group (of which the Fund acquires 70%), propelling the Group towards further expansion.
February 1, 2022
The name change becomes official, marking the historic passage from the local dimension of single companies to that of productive divisions of a national player; the Group is ready to compete internationally in the circular economy sector, through the production of sustainable and certified packaging for CO2 reduction.
Within the four divisions, the companies Valfreddana, Usvardi, Ecolfer and Benassi take on a single company name: ReLife Recycling. Plastipoliver and Cartiera Bosco Marengo become respectively ReLife Plastic Packaging and ReLife Paper Mill. Finally, General Packaging takes on the new name of ReLife Plastic Packaging.
The territorial distribution of the Group’s divisions, with its 18 facilities in the centre-north of Italy and 56 production lines, is determined by a proximity criterion, that is to be physically close to where the waste is made, to reduce CO2 emissions and costs related to transport and logistics. This is why ReLife is committed to collecting and recovering municipal and industrial waste with a limited geographical radius, with positive repercussions on both the economy and the environment considering the impact of transport logistics on the carbon footprint.
Although the group is young, the 4 production units Recycling, Paper Mill, Paper Packaging, Plastic Packaging of the Group, have long experience in the sector. The network is characterised by a horizontal business model based on expanding the customer base of people who think, design, produce and organise work according to circular economy principles.
In seven years, Relife became the first private-owned Italian operator in paper and cardboard recycling, whose innovative strength lies in waste management seen as an integrated first link along the entire value chain, enhancing all the opportunities of material recycling, to eliminate conventional disposal methods altogether.
To reduce the increase in the rejected portion of sorted waste that comes with a high rate of separate collection, the Group has designed a ReLife model to transform the rejected portion into alternative energy to replace coal. The new ReFuel facility in Silvano d’Orba (AL) will transform 140,000 tonnes of recycling waste into the best alternative to conventional fuels, putting cement works and thermoelectric power stations into the position of being able to make a real difference in their carbon footprint. Although at first glance the construction of the facility may appear to be an industrial discontinuity with the strategic plan to maximise recycling, it is actually fully coherent with these objectives by aiming towards maximising the recycling phase and minimising landfill disposal almost to zero.