Have you sorted your waste properly? The answer will come in the coming weeks, when the Ile-de-France sorting centers will be running at full speed again and they will be able to assess whether you have kept good habits during confinement, and thus continued to participate. to the recycling sector.
Unlike you, in recent weeks during the Covid-19 health crisis, the majority of sites responsible for processing your packaging and giving it a second chance have stopped.
In mid-April, one month after the start of confinement, of the 175 sorting centers in France, 48% were operating normally and 15% partially. A much lower average in the Paris region where in some cities including the capital, nothing was sorted.
Sick leave of agents and risks of contamination
“I realized that something was wrong when I saw that the yellow bins were emptied into the garbage trucks,” noted a resident of Bobigny three weeks ago. The same observation was made very recently by Parisians. Unsorted packaging ended up in incineration and contributed to the production of heat.
Example with Syctom, which processes the waste of almost half of Ile-de-France, i.e. 6 million inhabitants in Paris and in 84 municipalities (mainly inner suburbs): on its six sorting centers* operated by companies private, one was already closed for work and four others stopped after the confinement. The exceptional situation is largely linked to the sick leaves of the agents, but also to the risks of contamination.
The resumption of sorting begins slowly
From now on, the recovery begins slowly, often on the basis of partial activity. The Romainville center restarted at the beginning of last week. Syctom hopes to continue towards an operational return to all its sites during the week of May 11.
Of the 2.3 million tonnes of waste per year processed by Syctom, 187,000 tonnes go to selective collection. This does not seem like much, however, the union uses two external sorting centers, in Blanc-Mesnil and Limeil-Brévannes (Val-de-Marne), in addition to its six structures.
According to the last point made at the end of April by Citeo, in charge of recycling household packaging and paper, for the Hauts-de-France and Ile-de-France regions, between a quarter and a fifth of sorting centers are still closed. “The theoretical capacity available on French territory has increased steadily and more markedly over the past two weeks,” says Citeo.
*Nanterre, Issy-les-Moulineaux, Sevran and Romainville and two in Paris.
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