Tips
Article reserved for subscribers
The garbage collectors’ strike shows how much we still produce too much rubbish. However, there are effective solutions to reduce this volume: zero waste, anti-waste, composting of bio-waste, reuse… Overview of “Libé”.
The garbage cans are disgusting. The piles of garbage, a consequence of the garbage collectors’ strike against the pension reform in several metropolises, spectacularly highlight this problem. “This exceptional situation puts under our noses all the quantity of waste that we produce and that we do not want to see, points out Manon Richert of the organization Zero Waste France. However, what was not picked up and what we saw in the streets is only a quarter of the household waste produced in the capital. According to the town hall of Paris, these 7,600 tons not collected in ten days in part of the districts of the capital (those where the collection of garbage cans is not managed by private organizations) indeed represent only a straw, compared to the 30,000 tons of household waste produced in total over the same period in Paris.
The French generate 496 kilos of household waste per year and per inhabitant, according to the latest figures from the Ecological Transition Agency (Ademe) for the year 2020, which places them in the European average,