2023-06-29 15:10:20
Pinned at the beginning of June by the European Commission for its management of household waste (only 23% of plastic packaging being, for example, collected and recycled), France promises the return of the glass deposit for food within two years.
Voluntary hypermarket brands will experiment with taking back packaging next year, while producers will be financially encouraged (via a 50 million euro fund) to swap their disposable plastic packaging for their reusable glass equivalent, a announced Thursday, June 22 the Secretary of State for Ecology, Bérangère Couillard.
In a press release, the #Réemploi collective, bringing together environmental associations and economic players (including Surfrider, ZeroWaste, EC2027, etc.), welcomes “an exciting first step” arising from their proposals, while calling on the government to “to ensure the sustainability of this system from now on”.
How ? By launching as soon as possible “Packaging reuse roadmap” to hire a “constructive and inclusive dialogue involving all relevant stakeholders” et “determine and plan the conditions for its deployment”.
An effective lever to decarbonize the economy
“We are in the right direction with these types of announcements, says Pierre-Emmanuel Saint-Esprit, 22-year-old director of the circular economy at Manutan, a company that distributes capital goods to businesses and communities. But, to embark all the actors towards a new economic paradigm, it is necessary to create precise sectoral objectives, to revise the global indicators, to rethink the economic and fiscal framework in order to make the circular economy the matrix of the economy of tomorrow”.
This is one of the lessons of circular economy guide », published by the Institut Choiseul in collaboration with the collective Economie Cirque 2027, chaired by Pierre-Emmanuel Saint-Esprit. This ” manual “ for managers, based on testimonials and feedback from 25 representatives of private and public companies involved in this “transformation of linear economic models into circular models”, would allow “to curb 45% of greenhouse gas emissions”, notes the document of a hundred pages.
The state can do much better
If the anti-waste law for a circular economy (Agec) of February 2020 posed “the first milestones of a transformation »the path “remains long to move from a linear economy (extract, manufacture, consume, throw away) to a circular economic model (reduce, reuse, recycle)”estimates the Choiseul Institute. “Only 40% of the objectives identified by the National Council for the Circular Economy have been achieved in France in 2022”.
Asked by the Institute about “the effectiveness of the regulatory framework in making the economy circular”25 representatives of companies committed to the circular economy (Accor, Seb, Fnac-Darty, etc.) give the State a score of 4.1/10. However, “without the State, there will be no transformation of activity models”says the report.
Lack of a global, precise and coherent framework
For all respondents, “Only the State can now drive and accelerate this change in the economic paradigm”. However, they believe that the regulations “focus too much on recycling to the detriment of reconditioning, repair and reuse”.
“The piling up of laws, the frequent revisions cause economic players to get lost and it takes a lot of pedagogy to get them on board”, completes Pierre-Emmanuel Saint-Esprit. In these conclusions, the report thus calls “to define a clear and stable framework, commensurate with the ambitions set”.
Change operation
To make the circular economy “desirable”, entrepreneurs suggest“to involve both their employees and their customers in this transformation”. They also offer “looking for business opportunities” beyond the simple issue of waste and recycling. But also of “collaborate with the entire value chain to develop new models that are economically viable and sustainable”.
To spur a collective leap forward, several companies are even advocating “recognize the circular economy as a common good or of general interest”. Or to organize Estates General on the subject “to align all sectors on common objectives”.
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