Plastic today has a degraded image in France. The State puts in place laws to limit its use, in order to ultimately reduce its overall production.
However, plastic consumption continues to grow, and forecasts for the coming decade unanimously point to a constantly increasing production of plastic materials, everywhere in the world.
Thus, in 2030, the planet should produce 600 million tons of plastics (compared to approximately 400 million today). In France, this figure now reaches 4.5 million tonnes per year, which is equivalent to approximately 70 kilograms of plastic waste generated per year and per inhabitant.
In the history of mankind, the production of plastic, since this material invaded the sector of packaging and the production of industrial products, has fallen only twice. First during the first oil crisis in the 1970s, then in 2008 during the so-called subprime crisis. In the end, during the harshest episode of the health crisis that the planet has experienced since 2020, plastic consumption did not drop, while the world had almost “stopped”.
France has established an ambitious roadmap to disengage from its ultra dependence on plastic, in particular through the anti-waste law, which sets the stages for, in 2040, to lead to the banning of single-use plastics.
Three objectives, set by the first 3R decree, mark out this change, with objectives for the 2021/2025 period:
- A target of 20% reduction in single-use plastic packaging by the end of 2025, of which at least half will be achieved through reuse and reuse;
- A goal to strive for a 100% reduction in “unnecessary” single-use plastic packaging, such as plastic blisters around batteries and light bulbs, by the end of 2025;
- An objective of moving towards 100% recycling of single-use plastic packaging by 1 January 2025 and to achieve this an objective that single-use plastic packaging placed on the market be recyclable, do not disrupt supply chains sorting or recycling, do not contain substances or elements likely to limit the use of the recycled material.
This last objective, if it has the merit of ambition, seems difficult to achieve. In particular because recycling channels, for certain types of plastics, still do not exist. If the objectives displayed by the government are extremely proactive, today the recycling of plastics made in France has a little lead in the wing. Indeed, today, approximately 27% of plastic packaging was recycled in France in 2021. This figure reaches more than 40% in some of our Portuguese or English neighbors for example.
Recycling, the cornerstone of the circular economy
So what to do? A novelty in 2023, which might well tip the scales in the right direction, is the standardization of plastic sorting. Indeed, since the beginning of this year, citizens can throw all plastics in their yellow bin. A facility which should make it possible to systematize the right gestures, and to avoid sorting errors, frequent until then, and heterogeneous according to the regions. Other measures, implemented since the beginning of the year, should also contribute to reducing our dependence on plastic.
Will this be enough to reach 100% recycled plastics by 2025? Take a sector at the forefront of plastic recycling, such as packaging: today, this sector sends 65% of its products to a circular economy circuit. PET or HDPE are recycled efficiently, benefiting from a mature and efficient sector. For the remaining 35%, recycling channels are either being developed or do not exist. The sectors under development must absolutely consolidate to become economically viable. For those that do not yet exist, the problem often lies in the current impossibility of recycling certain plastics, such as packets of crisps for example. These are now incinerated and then buried.
As we can see, France will have to act quickly, very quickly, to become a leader in plastic recycling, and to respect its commitments by the end of 2025.
