The government waives the compulsory deposit for the recycling of plastic bottles

The government has decided not to impose deposits on communities for recycling plastic bottles, offering them a “voluntary and territorialized deposit”, according to a press release released on Friday. “No compulsory deposit system will be put in place, while respecting decentralized powers,” indicates this press release, which puts a stop to a project relaunched in May by the Head of State Emmanuel Macron and against which elected officials from all sides are up in arms.

“The government is choosing a territorialized approach,” declared the Minister for Ecological Transition, Mathieu Lefèvre, quoted in the press release, not wishing to “penalize communities which have already obtained very good results.” “Increasing plastic recycling remains a priority,” the government stressed on Friday, recalling that France was today very far from the objectives set by Brussels.

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Described as a “greenwashing” measure

Emmanuel Macron had highlighted this generalization of deposits as a lever to improve the collection of bottles and their recycling, the principle consisting of installing bins in supermarkets to collect used bottles, for a few cents for consumers. But at the end of June, elected officials slammed the door on a meeting on the subject organized by the Ministry of Ecological Transition, in order to protest against what they described as “absurdity” and accused of being a “greenwashing” measure.

Several representatives of Ile-de-France waste management unions threatened to “suspend payment of TGAP”, the general tax on polluting activities, if the government perseveres, and a demonstration against the measure is planned for Tuesday in Paris, under the leadership of the Amorce network of communities.

Elected officials contest the effectiveness of this measure: “when I look at the German example, the champions of the deposit” of the plastic bottle for recycling, “we can see that it has accompanied the increase in plastic production” in the country, declared Friday Corentin Duprey, president of Syctom, the Ile-de-France waste management union. In addition, he recalled, communities, which have invested in their sorting centers in recent years, took a dim view of the removal of the most recoverable waste from their facilities.