In 2025, almost half of French people will have to change their trash cans in order to optimize waste management. And we will have to be careful, because the collection invoice can quickly fly away …
Every week, without thinking about it too much, you fill your trash can. Some packaging, leftover meals, broken objects … Then, one morning, you take it out in front of your home and the truck passes to empty it. A trivial, automatic gesture. However, in a few months, this simple act could well weigh heavier in your budget.
Everything starts from a simple observation: we throw too much. Currently, a Frenchman produces an average of 580 kg of waste per year. A figure deemed too high by the authorities, who would like to see this volume drop for an ecological purpose. In order to empower citizens, a radical measure has been taken.
By the end of 2025, 25 million French people will have to adopt chip trash cans. This system, already in place in certain municipalities – in 2021, 6.5 million inhabitants were already equipped -, will indeed become widespread in France. Its purpose is to encourage everyone to better sort their waste and reduce the amount of residual household waste. But beware, this new system will not be free.
Concretely, these new trash cans will be equipped with a chip or an RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) label, placed under the lid, such as those that equip transportation, library books or certain pets. It will record each lifting carried out by the collection services. Some devices will go even further by integrating a weighing system, in order to know precisely how many kilos of waste you throw each time.
And that’s where the shoe is pinches. If the installation of the chips is relatively low – around 2 euros excluding taxes, generally supported by communities -, the collection bill can quickly skyrocket according to your habits. To put it simply, the more you fill your trash can, the more you pay.
Local communities will have the choice between different invoicing models: accounting for levees, weighing of the bac or volume of waste produced – but it will probably be the first solution, simpler and less expensive to put in place. With each collection, the chip is read by the sensors of the pickup trucks.
Beyond 18 annual collections, you are starting to pay penalties-1.20 euros per additional collection for individual bins (120 liters), 2.40 euros for a family bac (240 liters) and 15 euros for a collective bac (660 liters). So that amounts to getting your trash out every three weeks about three weeks. Note that the fixed share is however reduced, switching to 100 euros per year instead of 186 euros for a person.
The first feedback on the 6.5 % of French already equipped show a significant reduction in waste. Because the best solution to avoid seeing the invoice fly is to optimize your sorting. Recycling more, compost your organic waste, favor products with fewer packaging … Habits which, in the long term, could significantly reduce the amount of waste discarded and therefore the note to be paid.