The “repair bonus”, aid for the repair of electrical and electronic devices, has had a good start for four months, while waste in this category of products still represents around 1.8 million tonnes each year, according to the eco -organism ecosystem.
This bonus, created by law to encourage the French to repair more and thus extend the life of their equipment, was set up on December 15, and ranges from 10 to 45 euros depending on the device. A list of repairers, labeled “QualiRépar”, artisans or large distributors is also proposed (1,200 today, 3,000 expected by the end of 2023).
In four months, more than 20,000 users have used it, with an average bonus of 24 euros, according to a report. At the top of the most repaired products, the washing machine and the dishwasher, then the telephone. More than one in two devices did not need a spare part, ecosystem tells AFP, which provides “at least” 500,000 repairs covered this year.
From 2022 to 2027, the objective is to allocate 410 million euros in bonuses, a budget financed by the “eco-contribution” included in the price of all devices.
“We are off to a good start,” says Nathalie Yserd, director of ecosystem. The eco-organization, turned to its creation in 2006 towards recycling, is now committed to extending the life of products through repair and reuse.
With an estimated 1.8 million tonnes in 2022, the annual tonnage of waste in this type of product has returned to its pre-Covid level. About 61% are collected correctly.
ecosystem, which with the other eco-organization Ecologic manages the WEEE sector (extension and end of life of waste electrical and electronic equipment), however notes a slight increase in their duration of first use (+ six months for smartphones, + one year for washing machines).
– Illegal channels and full drawers –
There are more solutions to give them a second life (donation, reconditioning, etc.) and “citizens take a more responsible look at their way of consuming,” says Ms. Yserd: repair is good for jobs local, natural resources, the wallet.
New forms of collection are available to better recover this equipment.
For example, the jedonnemonelectromenager.fr platform offers free home collection by appointment. Tested in a hundred municipalities in the Ile-de-France region, the system will be extended to the whole of Ile-de-France during the year and “soon” in the South-East.
Part of the devices recovered will supply solidarity economy structures (which repair and recondition): these partners have already enabled the reuse of nearly 500,000 devices in 2022.
By improving collection, the sector also wants to fight once morest illegal channels, “growing concern” with the rise in metal prices: these channels monopolize around 450,000 tonnes of equipment each year, recovered for example from sidewalks before being compacted then exported, not cleared.
However, once morest the backdrop of the ecological crisis, the treatment of metals, plastics and also the greenhouse gases contained in refrigerators is a major subject.
An average French household has an average of one hundred electrical appliances, including lights, showed a study of the sector with Ademe.
ecosystem invites you to review in your drawers or in your garage all these materials kept “just in case”.
“A stored device ages, it loses a chance of having a second life”, underlines Claire Lemarchand, in charge of “awareness” mission at ecosystem.