It is a thick document of 77 pages, which sows doubt in the Val-de-Marne. Early last week, a study by ToxicoWatch, an NGO based in the Netherlands, revealed the “record” concentration of dioxins within a radius of two kilometers around the factory of Syctom, the metropolitan household waste agency. . Commissioned by the Collectif 3R, an association wishing to give priority to the reduction, reuse and recycling of waste, it thus indicates that these concentrations would be “among the highest studies carried out by ToxicoWatch in Europe”, according to the document cited by the daily The Parisian.
These maddening figures therefore concern several towns in the sector: Ivry-sur-Seine, Paris and its 13th arrondissement, as well as Charenton and Alfortville, in the Val-de-Marne. Last Friday, a meeting of more than two hours was organized remotely between the mayors of these municipalities, Suez, the operator of the incinerator and the Regional and Interdepartmental Directorate for the Environment, Planning and Transport (Drieat ). In response, the regional health agency intends to seek the advice of toxicological experts. An inventory of the local and regional situation should also be made, after the organization has requested the support of Public Health France and the National Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health Safety. . In one press release dated February 7, however, Syctom ensures that the “measured dioxin and furan levels (…) tend to demonstrate that the Ivry plant has no significant impact on dioxin levels”. But in the midst of these assessments, doubt remains, and a question posed by the 3R Collective remains: have we not reached the limits of self-monitoring of industrial sites?
A “pragmatic” approach
Being an ICPE (installation classified for the protection of the environment), the Ivry-sur-Seine incinerator is in fact subject to this regime. Created in 1976 on the occasion of the legislation on industrial risk, this category integrates major technological risk and will serve as a framework for several laws relating to the protection of the environment. It is a question of targeting all the environmental and health risks, in order to group together all the authorizations for industrial or agricultural exploitation. Among the classified establishments, we will thus later find the so-called “Seveso” establishments, namely industrial sites likely to present major industrial risks. It is also on the occasion of this law that the inspection of classified installations was created, which became the only competent entity in the matter. Previously, this role of visit and inspection was attributed exclusively to the labor inspectorate.
However, “since the 1970s, the State has gradually delegated to manufacturers the task of establishing their own security protocols, but also of defining their own standards with its services”, explains Thomas Le Roux, researcher at the CNRS and specialist in industrial risks and pollution. From 1995, the State even opted for what Thomas Le Roux described in an article for the review Terrestrial “a ‘pragmatic’ approach to law”: it gives private bodies periodic and regular control of the installations. The manufacturer must ensure permanent self-monitoring, in order to verify that the emissions it releases (into the water or the air, for example) are below the thresholds defined with the State in its authorization to operate. . “These ceilings are constantly evolving according to scientific developments and are set less according to health criteria than feasibility according to the products”, points out Thomas Le Roux.
This is what Suez and Syctom, responsible for managing the Ivry incinerator, do in particular. In its press release of February 7, Syctom recalled that the site is subject to “strict regulation of its discharges, including dioxins”. In this context, the organization explains that it has “equipped each chimney (…) with continuous samplers of dioxins and furans. This device establishes the average concentrations over four weeks”. At the same time, “four ad hoc campaigns by accredited and independent organizations” are also carried out, “covering all the regulated pollutants”, continues Syctom. “The trend is towards a multiplication of controls by private organizations on industrial sites, indeed”, comments Laure Verdier, consulting engineer in environment, safety at work and sustainable development, and founder of LVR consulting. In addition, “we also have an environmental monitoring plan, in which we will measure the fallout of dioxins and furans in our environment”, we are told at Syctom. In addition to these checks, there are also campaigns carried out “unexpectedly at the initiative of the State services”. Suez declined to comment further.
A “responsibilization” of industrialists
“But in fact, these inspections are quite spaced out, points out Laure Verdier. The reason is simple: there are few inspectors for many sites to monitor.” At present, for 500,000 classified installations – including more than 1,300 Seveso -, the administration has only 1,300 inspectors. An unbalanced balance, which was necessarily reflected in the number of visits: between 2006 and 2018, they thus fell by 40%, falling from 30,040 to 18,196. “More inspectors have nevertheless been recruited since the fire of the Lubrizol plant”, adds Thomas Le Roux. On September 26, 2019, a fire had indeed taken place in a chemical plant of the company Lubrizol, classified Seveso threshold “high risk”. “But their number is still low compared to the number of classified facilities in France.” Result: in most cases, inspectors visit these industrial sites once a year, or focus primarily on those “where there have already been complaints”, explains Laure Verdier.
In this context, the State therefore relies in large part on this self-monitoring, presented as a “responsibilization” of manufacturers. “They are criminally responsible in the event of an accident, and therefore have every interest in ensuring that this does not happen”, points out Laure Verdier. “But monitoring is necessarily less effective for the chemical industries, quite simply because the range of products used is increasing faster than the regulations”, sighs Thomas Le Roux.
Above all, this individual control remains insufficient according to sociologist Annie Thébaud-Mony, honorary research director at Inserm. “It seems obvious to me that it is naive to essentially trust a company, whose primary goal is profit, to ensure the control and security of a site,” she says, insisting on the need to more “checks” and “sanctions”. “Permanent, and not just occasional, surveillance systems are needed outside industrialists, of everything that may be released into the atmosphere, continues the specialist. But obviously, this type of system is expensive. Pending the conclusions of the new expert reports requested by the ARS, the inhabitants of Alfortville are in any case invited to “suspend their consumption of eggs pending the results” of the analyzes “which will be carried out very soon”, indicates the municipality. We can never be too careful.