On January 1, 2024, each municipality will have to offer residents a form of sorting food waste. Currently, in Île-de-France, only 1% of food waste is collected.
“Sort where you want, without making mistakes”, “Paris makes sorting easier for you!” : there are countless slogans inviting residents to sort their waste. However, in this area, Ile-de-France residents are not the best students in France, especially when it comes to sorting food waste.
To get an idea of the difficulties and try to find solutions, the City of Paris has launched a large-scale experiment. In 2017 and then in 2019, three arrondissements (the 2nd, 12th and 19th) were selected for the collection of food waste.
“The balance sheet is not satisfactory in terms of tonnage”immediately recognizes Colombe Brossel, deputy mayor of Paris in charge of the cleanliness of public spaces, sorting and reducing waste, recycling and reuse.
While the law requires all municipalities to offer a sorting solution for bio-waste (green and food waste) by January 1, 2024, the experience has allowed several lessons, including a fundamental one: only a handful of inhabitants separate their food waste.
“When we take stock of door-to-door collection, that is to say that we go to look for garbage cans in buildings, it is not very good. The subject is not the inhabitants, but the buildings. In the 2nd arrondissement, we have been able to install an additional bin in only half of the buildings. In Paris, there are only 60% of the buildings where you can put an additional bin. How we do to offer these inhabitants to recover their food waste?”continues the aedile.
The experiment resulted in a change of gear: now, there is no longer any question of generalizing brown bins. Collection points will be deployed in the public space. First around the markets (a proven method), then in public places such as schools, colleges or covered markets with the ambition that all Parisians have a terminal less than 300 meters from their home.
“Overall, we have a problem with very motivated people on one side and on the other, many who do not participate”analyzes Helder De Oliveira, director of the Île-de-France Regional Waste Observatory (ORDIF).
An old problem according to the latter: “We have been selectively collecting packaging for 30 years, but the vast majority is not sorted. We sort around 60% of glass bottles, 30% of cardboard and 20% of plastic. is in very low capture rates which change only slightly”.
Currently, of the 890,000 tons of food waste produced each year in the region, 95% is incinerated, “it’s simple, today we’re burning water”, regrets Helder De Oliveira. In fact, only 1% of food waste is currently collected, i.e. around 7,000 tonnes.
Faced with this severe observation, how can we encourage Ile-de-France residents to sort more? “We must mobilize the four levers: efficient logistics (bins and rounds of dumpsters), communication, regulations and financial incentives”continues the director of ORDIF.
This last lever would be underused: “However, it is easily imaginable in rural areas with incentive pricing. But very few intermunicipalities in Île-de-France have implemented it, only in the south of Essonne, which represents 1% of the population of Ile-de-France. We do not yet know how to apply it in urban areas. We may need to go through a more incentive system. But that remains to be invented”. The latter imagines collective terminals with a rewarding device such as the distribution of shopping vouchers or pool access tickets using the device. “But the idea is not gaining ground”he laments.
Because these places of collection still have a bad reputation: they give off bad smells, attract rats, and are too complicated to use.
Catherine Boux, Deputy Director General in charge of the exploitation and recovery of waste at Syctom, the main waste manager in the Paris region, wants to dismantle these prejudices. She repeats that you can put everything in a public compost, including meat waste or fish. Because in 98% of cases, they are sent to methanizers to create methane often called “natural gas”. The gas is then reinjected into the urban networks.
“All the systems work. If they don’t work, it’s linked to the consistency of the management of other waste. The waste producer must clearly understand that there is a transfer, but it’s up to him to do so. this differentiated management. If we are in an area where there is a habit of outsourced bins, we add a bin for food waste and it will be consistent. Today, it’s still complicated. It’s not enough to put a bin , it requires the participation of the inhabitant”she says.
While she acknowledges the slow start to food waste collection, she hopes that by 2025, 60,000 tonnes will be collected (nearly 10 times what is currently valued).
According to her, one of the causes is to be found in urban planning in the Ile-de-France region: “We are in the densest area in France, or even worldwide, with a great verticality of habitat. The appropriation of space is very different from what there can be in the provinces. There is a disempowerment. We have felt it for a long time. Even on glass, which is a historical flow, we have performances in Île-de-France that are lower than in other regions”.
Syctom does not despair of seeing this form of sorting take off. At present, this waste management agency does not have any reprocessing sites. A deficiency that should be resolved in 2025. “We have a methanisation project in Gennevilliers in 2025 for a capacity of 50,000 tonnes”she explains.
Faced with this lack of infrastructure, many companies are trying to offer solutions, often individual, such as the purchase of vermicomposters (which do not allow all food to be recycled).
Syctom is not to be outdone and has funded two experiments: a micro-methanizer in Vitry (Val-de-Marne), an electromechanical composter in Stains (Seine-Saint-Denis).
“Both work very well when there is an interwoven approach of collection and treatment methods. For example, we ask that compostable bags be distributed”says Catherine Boux who welcomes the lack of incivility: “Either people don’t do it, or it’s too restrictive. We only have 8,000 tonnes for this year, but the quality is good”.
For their part, professionals are more assiduous. Restaurant owners (traders such as those in collective catering) sort more: 65,000 tonnes of their food waste are collected each year.
