The anti-waste law will make it compulsory on January 1, 2024 to sort your food waste in order to transform it into compost. Individuals will have to adopt new behaviors and communities will have to decide on the organization of this new sector.
From November 2 to December 1, 2022, members of the Citizen Compost Network ( CCR) Venus from the four corners of France gathered at Meze in the department of Hérault. At the heart of the discussions, a revolution in the waste sector : the obligation for individuals to sort their food waste from 1 January 2024. What consequences for the population? What advantages for the environment? What role for communities? Response elements.
No one can escape it. From January 1, 2024, all French households will have to sort their bio-waste, then transform it into compost or bring it to collection points set up by the communities.
“This obligation aims to provide a third waste streamExplain Emily Fazzini, co-director of the Humus and associates association. Currently, bio-waste represents 30% of residents’ garbage cans. It’s a huge part of the waste streams that will be incinerated or buried, instead of being recovered. “The Compost, made from this household waste, can thus be used to nourish the soil instead of it being destroyed.
The law provides a strict definition of this term. Bio-waste are ” them non-hazardous biodegradable garden or park waste, food or kitchen waste from householdsoffices, restaurants, wholesale, canteens, caterers or retail outlets, as well as comparable waste from food processing plants.“
Among individuals, vegetable or fruit peelings, coffee grounds or cardboard egg boxes, shellfish or walnut and hazelnut shells are bio-waste that can be used for composting. But be careful, you have to be careful. In November 2022, theNational Food Safety Agency ( handles) alert on so-called single-use plasticsbiodegradable” Where “compostable“. Their total degradation in composters is not guaranteed. They can therefore be dangerous for the environment.
“This duty is based on local authorities who must propose solutions by 1er January 2024 to individuals ” replies Manuel Leik Jonardcoordinator of the Occitanie citizen compost network. “Waste management is one of their skills, precise Emily Fazzini. In the same way that we have bins for waste, communities are going having to put in place solutions for citizens. It’s their mission.“
Several possibilities available to them: install local composters in public gardens, for example, carry out collection door-to-door or at the foot of buildings or finally set up bio-waste containers similar to those for the recovery of glass.
The role of these communities will also be to support the population in adopting these new behaviours. Many associations belonging, for example, to the Citizen Compost Network (CCR) bring their help to meet the technical challenges, but also to train a sector in full professionalization.
Sorting your waste will first of all have a direct impact on the processing of all of our household waste. “If we do not separate our bio-waste, it is much more complicated to treat household wasteassures Manuel Leik Jonard. Bio-waste is essentially composed of water. They are therefore harder to burn. Currently buried in technical landfills, they cause the formation of leachate absorbing all the pollutants from a classic household waste bin, such as baby diapers, wipes. This causes juices that are poisonous. “
The other objective is to enable everyone to reclaim their own waste. For the coordinator of the Occitanie Citizen Compost Network, “By putting the material in a composter ourselves, we have a lot less food waste. A third of bio-waste is simply food waste. It should hold us accountable.”
According to the association ZeroWastein 2021“each Toulouse produces on average 139kg (83kg of food waste + 56kg of green waste) of bio-waste per year.”