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French households improved their sorting of plastic packaging in 2023, the traditional weak link in the yellow bin, but still remain far from European objectives.
The French recycled 27% of plastic packaging in 2023 compared to 24.5% in 2022, according to figures revealed Monday by Citeo, the organization which coordinates the collection and sorting of household packaging waste.
For plastic, the “deposit”, that is to say the quantity of packaging resulting from household consumption, “is stable, so it’s really a net increase“, rejoiced Jean Hornain, general director of Citeo, in an interview with AFP.
The French recycled 120,000 tonnes of additional plastic packaging between 2022 and 2023, an increase that Mr. Hornain attributes in particular to the end of the implementation of the extension of sorting instructions for all plastics, with “a simplification effect.
This increase in plastic, to which is added an increase in paper and cardboard, whose recycling rate increased from 63 to 69%, allows Citeo to announce an overall recycling rate for household packaging increasing by 1.5 point at 67%.
The French thus sorted 58 kilograms of household packaging per inhabitant in 2023, or 1.5 kg more than in 2022.
“We must rejoice, because we are moving forward“, estimated Mr. Hornain, while recognizing that we “is not on the trajectories“set by Brussels on plastic and, to a lesser extent, on aluminum, recycled at 27 and 37% respectively, while Europe has set a target of 55% recycling of plastic packaging waste by 2030, and 60% for aluminum.
France, which recycles packaging materials such as glass and steel very well (86% for both in 2023) is traditionally at the bottom of the pack for the recycling rate of its plastics: according to Eurostat, it was in 25th place in 2022, very far from countries like Slovakia or Germany, already in line or almost with the target drawn by Brussels.
Some of these countries, such as Belgium, have generalized an incentive pricing policy, which aims to limit the production of household waste in the gray bin by charging the user only for the waste they produce, which encourages to sort further.
“It’s a performance lever“, for Jean Hornain, who emphasizes that only seven to eight million French people benefit from this approach, a figure much lower than what is provided for by the energy transition law for green growth of 2015: the text had set an objective of 15 million inhabitants in 2020, then 25 million in 2025.
Another lever for improvement: the recycling of packaging that was not or poorly recycled until now, such as the polystyrene yogurt pot.
To this end, Jean Hornain hopes to soon see a factory in Antwerp, Belgium, currently in the testing phase, put into service.to make a circular loop, from the yogurt pot to the yogurt pot, where today the yogurt pot rather makes hangers and flower pots“.
Slide: Teaching your children to preserve the environment while having fun