Like all rich countries, France creates mountains of rubbish. The French threw away 24M tonnes of rubbish in 2003, twice as much as in 1975. To this should be added the 10m tonnes of heavy household items like furniture, washing machines and old PCs. The two French corporate giants, Veolia and Ondeo control over 50% of the market for collection, sorting and incineration of household waste. Yet despite, or perhaps because of this, France has one of the worst European records for recycling and the most expensive rubbish collection.
France initiated a major reform for household waste in 1994. The two most important features were that household waste would be sorted for improved recycling levels and that the burden of funding shifted from the national level to increasingly local levels.
Where does French rubbish go?
Since 1994, France has modernised many incinerators, built 300 waste sorting centres, 200 composting sites for organic waste and over 2000 sites for larger items. All this has led to a 130% increase in the cost of waste management since 1994, according to the national environment agency Ademe. To pay for this, local authorities have raised their rubbish collection taxes by an average of 85% over the last decade.
But today, 24 out of the 95 "départements" that make up France say they have insufficient infrastructure. In consequence, 52% of household waste ends up in old-fashioned rubbish dumps, versus 15% for the best in class: Switzerland, the Netherlands and Denmark. In fact, France claims the largest rubbish dump in Europe. The greatest deficit, however, seems to be recycling plants. France recycles just 11% of its household waste, versus 40% for Germany and Switzerland.
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