Starting January 1, 2024, the French government has introduced a new law that requires individuals, households and businesses to compost. It is estimated that 82 kilograms of compostable waste is discarded per person per year, and this law will significantly increase the feedstock pool for the French circular bioeconomy.
Let's take a look at France's recycling initiatives to date and how this new law will affect the various types of businesses that utilize organic waste.
New legal requirements
From January 1, 2024, households and businesses in France will be required by law to sort organic waste and ensure that it is collected or taken to municipal collection points. This waste will be used to make compost and fertilizer to reduce the use of harmful chemical fertilizers in agriculture.
The government also plans to use it for the methanization process, which uses methane released from the decomposition of organic waste to generate electricity or heat. This supports France's energy transition law, which aims to get 10 percent of the country's natural gas from renewable sources by 2030.
To help households and businesses comply with composting laws, all local authorities across the country must provide their residents with bio-waste collection bins. The Environment and Energy Management Agency (Ademe) will allocate a budget of Euro100 million to support local implementation measures.
Depending on whether public authorities choose to contract with the private sector for collection, this law could be a boon to existing organic waste collection startups. A French biowaste startup called Green Phoenix is hoping to win a public contract from the Strasbourg public authorities to carry out city center waste collection. A similar venture is Les Alchimistes, a startup that collects household and business biowaste from 12 cities, including Lyon, Nantes and Marseille, via a variety of low-carbon modes of transportation, including horse-drawn carriages.
This law has gone some way towards solving the problem of the large quantities of organic waste still being incinerated in France, which the 2009 "incineration tax" was intended to address, but contained a loophole whereby incineration for energy recovery would be eligible for a tax deduction. This makes recycling and reusing the material still much less economically viable than burning the fuel - the utilization of biomass is far less important than converting it into agricultural inputs or biomaterials.
The implementation of the composting law means that organic waste will be converted into a valuable resource instead of being incinerated or landfilled. This is a huge business opportunity for corporations and startups. They can provide composting services, develop composting technologies, manufacture organic fertilizers and bio-based products, etc. In addition, this will create more jobs in other environmental industries as organic waste decreases.
Overall, the French composting law is an important step towards a more sustainable lifestyle and economic development. It will encourage more people and businesses to participate in the circular economy, promoting the efficient use of resources and reducing negative impacts on the environment. However, the concerted efforts and cooperation of governments at all levels, businesses and the public are needed to ensure the effectiveness and sustainability of the implementation of this law.
Difficulties with the forced composting method
The difficulty with mandatory composting laws is the lack of enforcement mechanisms, which leads to actual implementation relying mainly on individual consciousness. For example, the French government has not supported the implementation of the law through means such as fines.
In response to these criticisms, the Ministry of Ecology responded that the government plans to take strong measures to ensure the effectiveness of the law, including a large-scale public awareness campaign this fall to encourage public participation.
The non-governmental organization Zero Waste Europe also noted that less than one third of the population in France has access to local composting facilities. The quality and coverage of organic waste collection varies from place to place, which undermines the importance of a sound and universal public infrastructure to promote the circular bioeconomy throughout the country.
How much importance does France place on the circular economy?
France has already achieved some success in the circular economy. In fact, according to Europe 2020 data, France has the third highest rate of recycled material use in the European Union, after the Netherlands and Belgium. 19.3% of France's total raw material use is made up of recycled materials.
The country has also worked on organic waste management over the past decade. Even in 2016, France has banned supermarkets from disposing of unsold food. between 2016 and 2020, the country has reduced food waste by 10%.
In 2018, for the first time, France took a major initiative to introduce a nationwide circular economy roadmap for waste price stabilization policies. For biowaste, the roadmap sets out plans on how to support agriculture, which is an important part of the French economy. It highlights the need to return all organic waste to the soil, including through fertilizers and composting.
The road map also calls for quality control of agricultural inputs based on biowaste. It hopes to strengthen existing quality standards for recycled fertilizers by ensuring that the final product is not degraded by contamination with organic matter or low-quality biowaste. It also envisages labeling fertilizers to draw consumer attention to high-quality recycled material products.
The document sets out broad policy objectives, but needs to be implemented through specific laws. One of these is the "Law 2020-105" of 2020, the law against waste and for a circular economy. This was the origin of the composting rules.
This 2020 anti-litter legislation mandates composting for the first time nationwide for entities that produce more than 10 tons per year. By 2023, this requirement will be extended to any entity that generates more than 5 tons of organic waste per year. The recent household participation rule is the final step in mandating composting for all.
However, the 2020 Anti-Waste Act doesn't just cover organic waste. By 2026, the law will completely ban plastic packaging for fruits and vegetables in an effort to eliminate one of the largest sources of plastic waste pollution in the environment - single waste plastics.
Will bio-based companies benefit?
Scaling up the circular economy requires cheap and reliable waste feedstock streams. One of the biggest obstacles is cost. Since household and commercial waste is spread over a wide area, it may not be economical for companies to collect and centralize it.
This task is best performed by national and local governments, which have the resources and infrastructural control to efficiently collect feedstocks from a wider area.
It remains to be seen, however, whether the composting law will translate more generally into growth in private recycling enterprises. The law does not mention the use of municipal waste for biomaterials and green chemicals, listing only biogas, fertilizer and compost.
Much of the French bio-economy is dedicated to these more traditional bio-industries and the law is a boon for them. One company that will benefit from the French government's push to use its waste for agricultural inputs and bioenergy is GDF SUEZ, which has a bioresources laboratory in Narbonne dedicated to researching ways to recycle waste for bioenergy, biomaterials, alternative fertilizers and green chemical molecules.
However, the composting method is less favorable to recycled waste startups that are expanding into biochemicals for the pharmaceutical and food sectors. These include companies such as Wheel hub Bikes, which convert food and plant-based waste into a wide range of products such as raw materials for the food and personal care industries, fibers, food coloring, and plant-based meat ingredients: fibers, food coloring, and plant-based meat ingredients. Digital French Patisserie is another startup utilizing organic waste.La Patisserie Numerique, based in Paris, uses patented 3D printing technology to turn food waste into desserts. Businesses like these will still have to find their way to waste on their own.
Some argue that the commencement of government provision of recycling services will make it more difficult for start-ups (e.g. those engaged in organic waste collection) to justify their existence. Whether the interests of public and private recycling players will conflict over waste collection and management depends on how local authorities choose to implement mandatory composting laws.
