The National Assembly voted on Thursday measures to facilitate the use of industrial “production residues” as raw materials for new products, as part of the first reading of the “green industry” bill.
These provisions were approved despite the reservations of deputies, fearing that they would be misused by industrialists to ease their constraints related to the treatment of hazardous waste.
The article, widely adopted (82 for, 1 against), provides in particular that production residues are not considered as waste within industrial platforms: they could be reused there without going through the procedures and obligations incumbent on waste producers, the aim being to facilitate their recycling in a logic of circular economy.
Measures are also planned to enable accelerated exit from waste status in the event of transfer from one company to another for recycling.
The article adopted provides that production residues could be recycled provided that they do not have an overall harmful impact on the environment or on human health.
Faced with the concerns expressed, the Minister of Industry Roland Lescure assured in the hemicycle that the same constraints would apply to industrialists treating residues as those which apply to waste treatment. He supported amendments from the presidential camp strengthening the declaration obligations and the supporting documents provided by manufacturers.
Large waste treatment companies have written to me to worry that toxic waste is burned in industrial boilers that do not meet standards: this is totally false, insisted the minister. If a waste, to be treated, must be heated to 850C, it will be treated in the same way on a platform that would like to reuse it.
Against the opinion of the government, the deputies adopted an amendment of several groups, and drafted in particular with Michelin, to allow French industrialists to use under certain conditions certain materials which would have come out of the status of waste from other EU countries.
A mechanism adopted in committee to prohibit the export of textile products containing plastic fibers when they become waste in the recipient countries has been removed, the presidential camp considering it ineffective, even contrary to European rules.
However, the government has undertaken to present measures within a year to ensure that these textiles will be reused and not treated as waste.
It doesn’t mean much, it has no effect, criticized the socialist Dominique Potier.