July 2005
abstract
Responsabilité & Environnement
Preventing wastes
Issue 39
Editorial
By François Valérian
Drafting and implementing a national plan for preventing the production of wastes
By Daniel Béguin and Virginie Rocheteau
Directeur Déchets et Sols Ademe Ingénieur au Département Prévention Recyclage, Organisation des Filières en charge de la coordination du projet "prévention" Ademe*
The modernization of waste management, which started in the 1990s, has been successful. However the assessment is less clear in terms of prevention. Since the volume of household garbage is still increasing despite these efforts, a national plan, announced in 2004, intends to stabilize the production of wastes by 2008. To achieve this, public opinion must be won over.
France Nature Environnement’s point of view
By Liliane Elsen
Réseau déchets de France Nature Environnement
Better late than never: France Nature Environnement is pleased to have been heard, finally. It is taking an active part in implementing the National Plan for Preventing the Production of Wastes. It has called for a democratic debate on such an important topic. Parliament must be involved in handling an issue that entails commitments for our future.
Prevention in France’s policy of waste management: The Assises de La Baule
By Jean -Luc Straczek
Ministère de l'Economie, des Finances et de l'Industrie Direction de l'Action régionale, de la qualité et de la sécurité industrielle (DARQSI)
From the first meeting in 1991, which prepared the way toward the July 1992 act with its three major priorities (preventing, recycling and reclaiming wastes), to the meeting in 2003, which returned to the question of reducing wastes at the source, seven successive Assises are evidence of the place that the theme of preventing wastes has taken in French waste-management policy.
On preventing wastes
By Roselyne Bachelot-Narquin
Députée au Parlement européen,
Wastes and sustainable development
By Rémi Guillet
Conseil général des Mines
Elimination, environmentally sound elimination, sorting and recycling… these first three phases in sustainable waste management are now more or less accepted and operational. A fourth phase is “no-waste”. This most “virtuous” phase entails radically transforming our modes of production, distribution and consumption. How far to go in the effort to make the preservation of the environment and conservation of resources compatible with the necessary satisfaction of our needs ?
Environmentally friendly production and waste prevention in the packaging industry
By Olivier Labasse
Conseil national de l'emballage
More than one hundred billion packing materials are used every year in France. How to control the increasing tonnage of wastes? Thanks to prevention, which is everybody’s business. The Conseil National de l’Emballage is trying to do this upstream in the production process and downstream by making consumers aware of how important waste prevention is.
Environmentally friendly design and an automobile-maker’s efforts to avoid a negative environmental impact: What criteria? What place for waste prevention?
By François Marie
Direction de la Politique environnement de Renault Pilote du système de management de l'éco-conception
In the 1990s, Renault switched toward an environmentally friendly design and developed, little by little, an ad hoc management system in various work areas in the firm. The newborn Modus, which has come out of these ongoing efforts, tries to strike a right environmental balance by making recycling compatible with the reduction of CO2. A vehicle that can be recycled for 95% is on the drawing boards for 2015.
Imagining a new relation to consumption: The “economics of functionality”
By Nicolas Buclet
Chercheur au CREIDD
How to sell services rather than material goods and thus work out a response to the problems of managing household refuse and to the challenges both of climatic change and scarcer resources? The “economics of functionality” has a twofold interest, economic and environmental. This discussion of its advantages and of the possibilities for applying it focuses on its real potential and limits as well as the obstacles to overcome.
Stop plastic bags!
By Serge Orru,
Président des Amis du Vent assisté de Pascale Boyer et Cécile Jaraudias
From Corsica, where it all stared, to Uganda, from Australia to La Ciotat in France, the fight against the distribution of single-purpose plastic sacks is picking up steam. Everywhere, public authorities, distributors and consumers are undertaking concrete actions to reduce the environmental impact of plastic bags. They are encountering success, but progress is still to be made.
Plastic bags: The manufacturers’ approach
By Françoise Gerardi
Chambre syndicale des emballages en matière plastique
The plastic bag era is over. Agreeing with distributors and public authorities, manufacturers are trying, already successfully, to find a replacement. They intend to keep this commitment by participating in implementing the waste prevention plan. They also remind us that sustainable development has three pillars, social and economic as well as environmental, and that the first two must also be taken into account.
From fighting against incineration to preventing wastes: CNIID’s actions for informing and involving the public
By Florence Couraud
CNIID
The CNIID has its origins in a concern about how the elimination of wastes (in particular dioxin-related products) affects health. Rather than inveighing against the effects, this association is trying to act on the causes. It has concentrated on the conditions for a possible society close to “zero waste”.
Advertisement flyers in mail boxes: The road to waste prevention will be hard and long!
By Jacques Pélissard
Président de l'Association des maires de France
One of the principal merits of the Stop Advertisement campaign is to put trash cans on a diet.” This campaign is fighting against the distribution of unmailed advertisements in mail boxes.
The concept of the “producer’s broadened responsibility” and the reduction of consumer wastes at the origin
By Matthieu Glachant
Cerna, Ecole des Mines de Paris
How to make the concept of the “producer’s broadened responsibility” operational? Does this entail individual or collective programs, a partial or total transfer of responsibility? Who, ultimately, should pay: manufacturers or consumers? Responses glimpsed through a few French and foreign examples…
Setting prices for public services, an efficient waste-prevention tool ?
By Olivier Arnold
Chargé de mission déchets Direction des études économiques et de l'évaluation environnementale Ministère de l'Ecologie et du Développement durable
The financing of public waste management might provide a basic way to prevent wastes if a break is made with the rationale of taxation. Although the idea of setting prices as a function of the service rendered is advancing, we are still far from making the shift toward a price schedule with incentives. Lessons drawn from foreign experiments conclude that public waste management should definitely take the path toward sustainable development.
Local waste management and waste prevention
By Francis Chalot
Vice-Président du Siredom, maire de Janville
and Bruno Genty
Administrateur de France Nature Environnement, consultant en prévention de la production des déchets
An act of 13 July 1992 stipulated that departmental plans were to be drawn up for the elimination of household wastes. These plans (PDEMA) were to provide for waste prevention. Ten years later, the objectives set in most departments in France have not been met. Will transferring authority to departmental boards of supervisors open the way to putting texts into practice? The National Plan for Preventing the Production of Wastes should help.
Local authorities’ actions for preventing wastes: Taking stock in Europe
By Francis Radermaker
Association des cités et régions pour le recyclage et la gestion durable
Collecting and reclaiming wastes is already an obligation for cities. But the growing volume of collected garbage is making it necessary to cope with the problem at the source. An environmentally friendly civic spirit must thrive if a more responsible waste management and more sustainable societies are to emerge.
The Paris Waste-Prevention Plan
By Jean-Marc Bourdin
Directeur, Direction de la protection de l'Environnement
and Arnaud Lange
Ingénieur en charge du plan prévention
The strategy of the city of Paris for waste management had already foreseen that the continued growth in the volume of garbage would lead to a switch from managing to preventing wastes. Launched in 2004, the Waste-Prevention Plan for Paris seeks to go farther and have a lasting impact on behaviors. Its major axes are: develop an exemplary administration, change behaviors and provide for a more sustainable waste management. Its method is to develop joint efforts for drafting the plan and to involve Parisians in implementing it.
Repairing and reusing household appliances: A way to prevent wastes and to advance toward sustainable development
By Jean-Luc Tissier
Délégué général, Fédération Envie
Reusing household appliances — a priority in the new EU directive that is going to be transposed into French law this year — will stimulate firms in the “social
Centers for recycling resources: Reuse, a sustainable development method
By Sylvie Chappelet
Responsable du réseau Recycleries-ressourceries
How to anchor sustainable development in an economics of solidarity by developing a new industry? Throughout France, centers for recycling resources are retrieving value from wastes by reusing them. These centers are thus performing their duty of managing and preventing wastes.