Every year rolling stock—Intercités, Transilien, TER and TGV passenger trains, and diesel and electric freight locomotives—is taken out of service for disassembly and reclamation. Qualified subcontractors dismantle and decontaminate the units, and parts in good condition are reused in the active fleet, reducing maintenance costs.

Several disassembly plants do the work.

Maintaining and upgrading our rail lines, requires us to remove large quantities of material. By reusing and recycling it, we advance the circular economy—conserving mineral and plant resources, shrink our environmental footprint, and preserving increasingly scarce metals.

Screws and other small parts go to a special recycling facility in Beaune, in eastern France. By 2025, SNCF Réseau plans to collect and reclaim 100% of the components from its infrastructure project sites for reclamation.

As we upgrade our systems, we use La Grande Collecte – a nationwide initiative we launched to collect and repurpose SNCF-owned electronic office equipment.

Managed by e.SNCF Solutions, the programme focuses on in-house reuse, external reassignment, and responsible recycling. For external reassignment, we partner with Recyclea, a specialized business recognized as an Entreprise Adapté (company governed by the French Labour Code in which at least 55% of employees are people with disabilities) since 2025. We also work with environmental experts at Ecologic to ensure proper recycling. In 2024 alone, 9,274 devices, ranging from desktops and laptops to smartphones and tablets, were collected and given a second life.

To keep more railway products out of landfills, SNCF Réseau has developed Second Life, a mobile app that helps agents identify and assess items directly from their work phones. By simply taking a photo, the app provides details about the product’s features and content, and indicates whether it can be:

• reused immediately
• reused after technical inspection, or
• sent directly for recycling.

The app is powered by patented innovations in AI-driven object detection and 3D modelling. It was developed with support from the railway signalling department of SNCF’s Technical Engineering and Innovation Division (DTII) and co-financed by SNCF Réseau’s internal GUPDD or “single point of contact” for managing the lifecycle of materials and equipment removed from the railway infrastructure.

Scheduled for release in 2026, Second Life is set to become a key tool for managing railway assets more intelligently, sustainably and responsibly.

At SNCF, an employee’s workwear is a sign of their job title. For safety and security reasons, it can’t be dropped in public collection bins for mainstream textile recycling. In 2014, we joined with the non-profit OREE to create FRIVEP, a dedicated channel for collecting and processing workwear. FRIVEP is backed by 6 partner businesses, along with industrial companies, institutional partners, and Ademe, France's Agency for Ecological Transition.

Unneeded protective gear. Excess station and office furniture. Surplus supplies and small appliances. Instead of throwing away these unused items, SNCF employees can list them on Boutique Éco, an in-house swap-and-share website. It’s a practical, personal way for all of us to help reduce waste.