Letters: French recycling rules just lead to more waste

To the Editor,

I write in response to Samantha David’s article on recycling.

The commune in which I live used to have five places around the village for recycling, with four large communal bins at each place: one for glass, one for paper and two that took plastic and metal. 

The system seemed to work pretty well, though some abused it by leaving all sorts of rubbish by the bins, which still happens. 

It meant low pollution, as trips to the bins were always combined with a trip elsewhere.

When the communes were amalgamated, the bins for plastic and metal were removed and all households were issued with expensively printed yellow plastic sacs. More plastic! 

These bags have to be left out the night before the appointed collection day next to the nearest shared general rubbish bin. 

Many leave bags out as soon as they are full so the village looks like a dechetterie and the bags attract rats. The rubbish truck that used to make five stops now tours the area collecting the bags – more vehicle pollution.

Now the target is zéro déchet, so thousands of houses are being issued with individual bins – green for general waste, yellow for plastic and metal – which will involve even more polluting kilometres from the truck collecting them. 

The cost of this exercise must be enormous, and for what? It has been admitted that 70 to 80% of the plastic collected cannot, at present, be recycled and we still have to take paper and glass to the communal bins.

Excess waste needs to be tackled at source. Marketing discovered long ago that the bigger the packaging, the more people would pay. I could give you several everyday examples of this.

Keith Howlett, Vienne

Read more: What’s new in France in 2025 for environment and ecology

To the Editor,

The push to force the public to do more and more examination of the thousands of different types of packaging and how and where to dispose of said packaging is driven, as always, by usually local, government 'officials' who have very little of any kind of 'work' to do and so relish any opportunity to change (interfere) with existing legislation.

The unfortunate fact that most 'recycling' is a scam purely to make us think we are helping save the planet when in fact our waste still ends up on distant shores is criminal in the extreme. 

Carl Sims, Tarn-et-Garonne 

Does the recycling system work well in your commune? How do you manage in your household? Let us know at letters@connexionfrance.com