Municipal services provide direct waste collection in half of the boroughs. Stefano RELLANDINI / AFP
The capital has been crumbling under waste for eight days, but not in all the districts.
The mobilization of garbage collectors against the pension reform continues. In the capital, more than 5,600 tons of waste were strewn on the ground on Monday, according to the town hall. But, as Parisians have noticed, the situation differs greatly depending on the neighborhood: in some districts, household waste continues to be collected, despite the renewable mobilization started on March 7. How to explain this variation in the situation according to the districts?
In Paris, as in other conurbations, the management of household waste collection is the responsibility of the municipality, which can choose to exercise this power itself directly or to grant it to a private operator through a contract or a public service delegation.
The City of Paris has opted for a hybrid organization: the municipal services directly manage collection in half of the arrondissements (2nd, 5th, 6th, 8th, 9th, 12th, 14th, 16th, 17th, and 20th), while the other ten arrondissements are managed by private companies (Derichebourg, Veolia Otalia, Pizzorno, Urbaser).
To return to the mobilization in progress, a majority of municipal garbage collectors are on strike (60% last Monday, according to the CGT), causing heavy disruption in the collection of the districts managed directly. Within private companies, on the other hand, the rate of strikers is much lower and waste collection is not affected for the time being. Hence a contrasting situation across the capital.
Use of private service providers
The only exception to the table: the 15th arrondissement, managed by the Pizzorno company. Employees of the company, who also collect waste from several towns in the Val de Marne (Rungis, Arcueil, etc.), blocked the dump truck garage yesterday. It should also be noted that waste treatment is still impacted by the blocking of the three incineration sites of the Syctom metropolitan agency.
Several voices have been raised in recent days to demand from the town hall a minimum service as well as the use of private service providers, in the name of public safety. It would seem that their grievances have finally been heard by the City of Paris… but in all discretion. Indeed, according to the mayor of the 17th arrondissement Geoffroy Boulard, the City of Paris would have called on the company Derichbourg to collect waste at night in certain arrondissements of Paris, normally managed by the public authority: 6th, 9th, 16th and 17th. boroughs. The night rounds would take place from “several days already“According to the chosen one.
The situation, in any case, gives food for thought to the supporters of privatization. The elected Pierre-Yves Bournazel (Horizon) pleads, for example, for the collection of Parisian waste to be “entirely delegated to the private sector“. The City of Paris has more than 6,000 agents assigned to garbage collection and cleaning. Waste management by the municipality had been deemed “insufficientby the Regional Court of Auditors in a report dated February 2022. Residents and elected representatives of the opposition have also been denouncing the lack of cleanliness of the City of Light on Twitter for several years with the hashtag #saccageParis.
TO HAVE ALSO – Pension reform: towards the final fight?