2023-12-29 15:02:04
Peelings, egg shells, coffee grounds: communities now have the obligation to offer their citizens a way to sort their bio-waste, in order to produce compost or biogas. However, they are far from ready.
What needs to change from January 1, 2024 ?
By January 1, 2024, communities must have provided residents with a solution for sorting their organic waste, so that it is no longer thrown in the trash.classic» but apart from being valued. “This development finds its origins in the Grenelle II law of 2010 which imposed thresholds on large producers of biowaste», Explains Muriel Bruschet, national biowaste referent at the Environment and Energy Management Agency (Ademe). Then in 2015, a law extended this sorting obligation to communities by January 1, 2025. “Europe has taken up the text and brought forward this deadline to January 1, 2024 for all member countriesspecifies the expert. The anti-waste law for a circular economy (Agec) voted in February 2020 only applied this European regulation. » Important clarification, therefore: the law does not apply to households and contrary to rumors, “ no trash will be collected for sanction purposes for individuals », assures Ademe.
What waste are we talking about? ?
Each French person generates 83 kg of bio-waste per year, and this represents around a third of our unsorted waste. This includes both green waste from gardening, such as lawn mowing, twigs or dead leaves, but also food waste such as fruit and vegetable peelings, chicken bones, fish scraps. or even candy. All leftover meals or expired kitchen products, insists Muriel Bruschet: “False information is circulating regarding certain foods that supposedly should not end up in compost; they probably come from the fact that people confuse vermicomposting and classic composting. When we talk about vermicomposting, we are talking about multi-layer boxes housing worms which have a particular diet and to which we must in fact avoid giving garlic, citrus peels, fish or in meat. But in a classic compost, you can put everything, provided you have good practices : cut the remains into small pieces, stir well, make sure everything is sufficiently moist… »
Read alsoFrom January 1, 2024, co-ownerships will also be affected by the composting of biowaste
Sort them, what for?
«The primary challenge is to remove biowaste from the landfill or incinerator, because it contains a lot of water, and burning it does not make sense.», Indicates Vincent Coissard, head of the waste and circular economy sub-directorate at the Ministry of Ecological Transition, quoted by AFP. The compaction of waste and its incineration cause greenhouse gas emissions, responsible for global warming.
The objective of sorting is therefore to send this bio-waste to composting platforms or to a methanizer to make biogas. As for composting, the micro-organisms will degrade the bio-waste to make an amendment, in other words a substance which will improve the properties of the soil to make it, for example, more resistant to drought and erosion. This helps reduce the use of chemical fertilizers. The other way of recovery is methanization: “ the methane produced by the fermentation of organic matter will be recovered then reinjected into the gas networks to create heat or electricity », explains Muriel Bruschet.
What are the different sorting solutions?
Communities must choose the solutions that they will make available to their citizens and inform them (it is therefore not a priori up to the latter to buy their own composter). They can opt for local management, with distribution of individual or neighborhood composters, at the foot of buildings for example. Individuals then manage the compost and use it for their garden, balcony or indoor plants. They can also choose separate collection, door to door or with the provision of specific bins on the public highway, which a truck will then transport to industrial composting or methanization platforms. What is the most effective option? “ The best solution is the complementarity of solutions, believes Muriel Bruschet. You must carefully study the needs of your territory » which will not be the same if it concerns residential or very dense urban areas.
How to limit nuisance?
Odors, rodents, etc. To reduce nuisance, collection trucks are required to pass at least once a week and the bins must be cleaned regularly. “ However, it must be borne in mind that these are closed metal bins, recalls the expert. Rats have always been there, and they will not be more attracted than by conventional trash cans which already contain this bio-waste. ».
Are communities ready?
The principle having been implemented since 2015, communities are not caught off guard. “ If the question is whether 100 % of French inhabitants will have a sorting solution at source [au 1er janvier 2024]it’s no, because the deployment will be in progress », However admitted the Ministry of Ecological Transition. Less than a third of the population (20 million French people) should benefit from it by this date. The ministry aims to have doubled the investment by the end of the year, provided that the industrial sector is ready to treat the waste downstream.
For the moment in any case, no sanction mechanism is planned for communities which do not play the game. “The question could be posed differently if the European Commission initiated litigation proceedings against France, but the question absolutely does not arise at the moment. », we explain in the entourage of the Minister of Ecological Transition Christophe Béchu. And if certain associations denounce a lack of political will to enforce the law, this same source replies that there is no question « to be in a perpetual standoff ». Lhe implementation of this new collection is complex and has a cost (estimated between seven and twenty euros per inhabitant) which can inevitably have repercussions on local taxation… hence undoubtedly a certain ” chilliness » communities to get started.
The State supported the deployment of bio-waste sorting via the recovery plan in 2021/2022, then via the Green Fund (endowed with a total of 2 billion euros in 2023 and 2.5 billion in 2024). 200 requests for support were supported (up to 30%) this year, for a total amount of 63 million euros, according to the ministry.
Read alsoLess than a third of French people will have access to sorting biowaste by the end of 2023, according to Ademe
In the capital, the town hall is aiming to install around 500 new bio-waste bins in the street by the end of next year. These bins must be located “ less than three minutes » on foot from the home of «all Parisians», Explained to AFP the assistant for cleanliness, Antoine Guillou. According to him, collection will be carried out every 48 hours by the Derichebourg recycling company and the waste will be transformed into biomethane.
The town hall, however, decided to put an end to the collection of bio-waste at home, tested since 2017 in three districts (the 2nd, 12th and 19th), because the quantities collected were “relatively weak”. “What also comes up is that there was not enough space in the garbage rooms, note Muriel Bruschet. However, other large cities have succeeded in doing so, such as in Italy.. The city of Milan is also a champion in this area: 87% of food scraps produced by the city are sorted.
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