Waste management in France,
towards a circular economy
Loïc LEJAY June 2016
General Directorate for risk prevention
French Ministry for Environment
Crédit photo : Arnaud Bouissou/MEEM
Overview of waste arisings in France
(residues from forest and agriculture are not included)
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content
1 ) Municipal-solid-waste management in France, after
40 years of waste-politics
2) Overview of the french and european waste-laws
since 1975
3) How to initiate the shift towards circular economy ?
1 ) Municipal-solid-waste management in France, after 40
years of waste-politics)
Today : for 65 millions inhabitants and ~ 1000 municipalities in charge of waste management
~4.500 waste bringing center (for occasionnal waste like furniture, electronics, garden,
building...) and about 200 re-use centers (social enterprises)
~250 industrial sorting center (for curbside collection of recyclables like packaging and paper)
most observers think there are two many of them...
~200 dedicated sorting centre, related to the other EPR schemes which reduce the burden of
municipalities and divert more waste stream for recycling (WEEE ; textiles ; furniture,
batteries ...).
~600 composting platforms (include~450 dedicated to gardening-waste and a growing number
of projects combining composting + biogaz (Anaerobic Digestion plants, mainly feeded
with agricultural residues),
~ 125 incinerators of non hasardous waste (around 50% considered as waste to energy plant,
others still produce electrical power) ; 57 plateform to process the bottom-ashes to get it
suitable for road construction
~240 modern storage sites of non hasardous waste (ex-dumpyard)
1 ) Municipal-solid-waste management in France, after 40
years of waste-politics)
Regions in charge of waste-management scheme
charge of
Municipalities (most often severalmunicipalities linked together) in
collection and treatment of MSW
Including the location of treatment
plants, which
and deal with
has to respect the regional plan
NIMBY. Possibility for the
commune-host to implement a local tax on the
tonnages
accepted.
Each commune (city) in charge of street
cleaning streets, sweeping etc...
1 ) Municipal-solid-waste management in France, after 40
years of waste-politics)
Today : for 65 millions inhabitants
The average cost* per inhabitant is around 115€/hab/year.
It includes all the costs : collection, sorting, final treatment (operationnal and
investments)
How do the citizens pay ?
- mainly through the TEOM (tax on the collection of domestic waste), 6.8 B€, which
depends on the size of the house / apartment (not linked to the service or the
quantity collected. This system is comfortable for municipalities, but not incentive
for prevention of waste or better sorting)
- also through the consumption : when you buy a new product which is covered by an
EPR system : around 1B€
* Source : Chiffres-clés Déchets ADEME 2015, total cost for Déchets ménagers et assimilés ; 9.9 B€ for
household and similar waste collected together, the latest estimated to 25% by the author)
Key figure: evolution of waste streams
collected by municipalities in Fr
Bringing center
(household go by car and drop their was
Door to door or small containers c
- garden waste / biowaste
- dry recyclables (packaging and pape
residual waste (non-sorted every day
Key figure: evolution of landfilling
2) Overview of the french and european
waste-laws since 1975
2) Overview of the french and european waste-laws since 1975
1975 : EU and french first dedicated and overwhelming waste law
1976 : first french law on authorized sites ; then, France counted ~6000
dumpyards
1992 : second dedicated and overwhelming waste law (FR) ; announces that after
2002, the dumpyard should not receive any unsorted waste, if economical and
technical conditions are met -> broadly speaking, these conditions were not
met !
1993 : first implementation of EPR scheme for household Packaging
(EcoEmballages + Adelphe)
2002 : EU rule for incinerators ; impact for France : instead of 300 incinerators
(often small ones), there are left 130 at the end of 2005. After several cases of
dioxin contamination, the french authorities were very tough in implementation
in the period 2003/2005.
2) Overview of the french and european waste-laws since 1975
2004 : 1st time a national plan is adopted to prevent the production of waste
(mostly municipal waste)
2008 : EU waste framework Directive ; aims to create a recycling society ;
officialises the waste hierarchy.
2007/2009 : Grenelle forum ; includes a third dedicated law on waste ; new goals
for 2012 ; broad approach with 5 families of stakeholders
2014 Second national program for prevention of waste
2015 august Loi de transition nergtique pour la croissance verte Energy transition
law for green Growth
Title IV is dedicated to circular economy and waste policy In line with the plan for
waste management 2020
2016/2017 EU level : circular economy action plan + revision of waste Directives
Focus : transposition of the Waste Directive 2008/98/CE
French gov. chose to use an « ordonnance » allowed by article 38 of french Constitution,
for mesures that have usually to go through a law (Parlement).
Ordonnance no 2010-1579, 17 déc. 2010, bringing several adaptations in the field of
waste regulations, coming from the European Union law, including the Waste
framework Directive.
Crafting such ordonnance means basically :
1) diagnosis of what is new in the Directive, compared to the existing legislation in
French Codes (Env. and few other Codes : Customs and Municipalities)
2) diagnosis of what has to be changed, modified or added and in which Code (tableau
de correspondance / correlation table)
3) designing the ordonnance as a puzzle (adding the right words at the right places) and
pre-defining a number of Decrees
4) checking with other administrations and official bodies involved like EU Com.
5) make the ordonnance signed by President and Prime minister
Ordonnance no 2010-1579, 17 déc. 2010, bringing several adaptations in the field of
waste regulations, coming from the European Union law
Article 1 annnouces that art 2 to 22 modifies the french Environment Code, its legislative
part.
A number of definitions (included the one on waste) has been changed this way.
Several articles introduce a forcoming Decree, which has to be crafted in the following
month / year, in order to define the detailed implementation rules (modalités
d'application) : Here is a list of the main Decrees included :
Art.4 end of waste procedure
Art 6 labelling and packaging of hasardous waste
Art 8 approval procedure of the EPR schemes
Art 16 source separation (sorting) of waste produced by non house-hold (paper,
plastic, metal, glass)
→ A long lasting process, specific in each European country, depending on the
existing national codes, and depending on the way the law and decrees are
usually crafted
Title IV of the Loi de transition énergétique pour la
croissance verte (17 august 2015)
Title IV of the Loi de transition énergétique pour la
croissance verte (17 august 2015)
•
Resource strategy every 5 years
•
Resource efficiency (lowering GDP use of material by 30% from 2010-2030)
•
Definition of circular economy ; promotion of territorial and industrial ecology
•
struggle against planned obsolescence (€penalty) ; reflexion on lifespam of
products
•
End of single-use plastic bags at cashiers desk (all plastic bags thicker than 50
microns) ; except bio-sourced and home-compostable for direct use of
packaging
And also specific measures for public procurement, road construction, C&D
waste, control on installations and export of waste
Title IV of the Loi de transition énergétique pour la croissance
verte (17 august 2015)
- In 2020 : reducing by 10% all municipal waste (compared to 2010)
-
diverting to recycling and organic, 55% of all non dangerous and non inert
waste in 2020 and 65% in 2025 ;
-
in 2025, offering to all households a solution to sort their biowaste ;
-
in 2022, all households sort all their plastic packaging waste
-
reducing the landfilling of non-dangerous & non-mineral waste : the quantities
landfilled in 2020 will have to reach only 30% of the quantities landfilled in
2010. and 50% in 2025
-
Pay as you throw schemes for 15M inh in 2020 and 25M inh in 2025
- Harmonising bin colors and sorting-schemes for paper and packaging (2025)
- Define a new Regulatory frame-work for RDF + checking of the recycling content
still in the RDF
3) How to initiate the shift towards circular
economy ?
3) How to initiate the shift towards circular
economy ?
A set of tools will be used
-
Prevention and avoidance of generating waste (ex : biowaste locally managed ;
end of the free plastic bags given in shops)
-
Eco-design of goods (ex : packaging)
-
Much more selective collection for all generators o waste (households and pro)
through ambitious mandatory target to the EPR systems ; for packaging, all
plastic packaging sorted by householders in 2022
- Using ADEME waste fund (~180M€ /an) to accelerate the transition (ex: call for
zero waste territories)
-
A call for projects Zero-waste (AAP zro gaspi-zro dchets) has been launched
for the 1st time in sept.14 ; today 150 municipalities have been selected and
are accompanied during 3 years to get closer to zero waste (~30 Mn inh).
Financing the transition
A tax on disposal (landfilling and incineration) is operated by Custom
administration. A part of this tax goes to ADEME waste fund (~180M€ /an) to
accelerate the transition (ex: call for zero waste territories ; modernization of
waste-sorting-centers etc...)
Programme des investissements d’avenir (for the most innovative projects)
And channeling / pre-financing several separate collections trhough EPR
(extended producer responsability)
Reuse
In 2012, almost 5,000 re-use structures available to the public were listed in
France.
In 2012, re-use stakeholders re-used over 800,000 tonnes of goods. This activity in
France represents over 18,000 jobs (equivalent to full-time), of which 3/4
concern charitable and social economy stakeholders
Focus : Examples of projects
Re-use for employability Envie
The association Envie is the French national leader in the re-use of electrical and
electronic equipment (EEE).
It promotes integration into the world of work and training of the long-term
unemployed by recovering used EEE in order to restore and resell it. The
federation groups 50 insertion companies and 2500 employes. In 2014, the
work of these companies enabled the renovation of 80,000 appliances, the
collection of 150,000 tonnes of WEEE. Turnover of 73 M€.
On the internet : www.envie.org
biowaste
Official goal (LTECV) : in 2025, every household has a solution to
sort their biowaste :
- either to compost themselves (private garden or collectiv site
near the building)
- or through separate collection and composting or AD (anaerobic
digestion, to obtain bio-methane)
And getting all the non-housold biowaste producers sorting their
waste and chaneling them to compost or AD plants.
Pay as you throw
Official goal (LTECV) : Pay as you throw schemes for 15M inh in
2020 and 25M inh in 2025
Convince municipalities to shift to new way of making housold
pay : : lowering the part (or abandon) the utilisation of local tax
not linked to the service, and shifting toward a system where
the citizen pays a variable fee, depending on the frequency of
presentation of the bin and the amount of waste sorted.
ADEME helps the municipalities to adopt the new system (creation
of database, chips on the bins...)
Recycling
a key-component of the circular economy ;
BUT it's also a waste-processing operation !
•
First steps: analyse the waste stream to be recycled; separate
collection, sorting and putting back on the market secondary
raw materials (SRM)
Year 2012 : France produced 24 millions tons of SRM, from which 10 mt
were exported (mainly steel - a lot to Turkey-, paper/cardboard and non
ferrous metals) ; France imported 3,5 mt
•
Second step : utilization in our industries of SRM
Year 2012 : France has consumed 14,2 mt of SRM
-> New challenges ahead for plastics, and waste containing
strategical metals like WEEE, batteries and ELV.
Recycling – quantities collected ; imported ; exported
Paper/carboard
Metal scrap
Glass
plastic
Full use of the tool « EPR »
The principle of Extended producer responsibility
Full use of the tool « EPR »
The principle of Extended producer responsibility
Full use of the tool « EPR »
The principle of Extended producer responsibility
FIN