The Parisian municipality has not met all of its waste management objectives, according to a report by the Regional Chamber of Accounts (CRC), which will be hotly discussed at the next Paris Council which opens on Tuesday March 22.
This is particularly the case for the stated objective of reducing the volume of waste by 10%, set by 2020 by a 2015 law and taken up by the local waste prevention plan. Over the period 2015-2020, the Paris municipality will only have succeeded in reaching 5.5%.
A “significant” decrease but which remains “insufficient to achieve the objective” according to the CRC, which estimates that even if the practice of sorting has developed in the capital, reaching 40% in 2019, “progress is still necessary to improve the effectiveness of the gesture”.
Too much waste
Other subjects highlighted by the CRC: that of bulky items, whose results are “still unsatisfactory” and which “have continued to increase despite the more systematic verbalization” of illegal dumping, that of the collection of organic waste which “is growing but too slowly”, and that of reuse remained “at a modest level”.
An observation shared by Nour Durand-Raucher, elected EELV in the 11th, who believes that one of the solutions to the weight of bulky items should be “to invest as much as possible in the reuse sector”. “We have all seen bulky items placed on the sidewalk in perfect working order,” he notes, believing that “the problem in Paris is the Parisians who create too much waste”.
The CRC also regrets that organic waste is only collected in three boroughs and “only” from households and municipal services, but not from restaurants. The total collection of 3,000 tonnes “seems low and very far” from the objective provided for by law with the generalization of the sorting of biodegradable waste by the end of 2023.
The management of the city criticized by the opposition
“We did not hold the pen of the magistrates of the Regional Chamber, and yet, they abound in every point on what denounces the Changer Paris group and its president [Rachida Dati, ndlr] for months”, thus quipped Nicolas Jeanneté, elected Changer Paris in the 15th arrondissement.
He assures him that since 2015 and the arrival of Anne Hidalgo at the head of the town hall, the volume of waste has started to rise again, going from 450 kilos of waste per inhabitant in 2015 to 470 kilos in 2018. He also criticizes the Importance of Parisian garbage collectors, numbering 6,000, who benefit from a “super derogatory” regime with up to 32 days of RTT.
On this subject, the report of the Regional Chamber points out that certain personnel benefit from a higher number of RTT than what is planned, and this despite a decreasing absence rate since 2017, and recommends to the City to “put in compliance” these work cycles “with the working time protocol”.
“There is a real problem with cleanliness in Paris, we know it”, recognizes for her part Maud Gatel, the president of the group of elected MoDems, Democrats and Ecologists at the Council of Paris, who evokes a “governance of cleanliness little territorialized” in the capital. “Since the recent changes [le «Big bang de la propreté», ndlr]it may be, but it was about time, ”she adds.
The elected official also recalls that there are a certain number of “recurring difficulties”, with the materials in particular, which do not come out often enough and remain in the warehouses, “while we really need them”, but also about the quantity of waste sorted or even assessment tools to remedy this.
The costs of waste collection in Paris are indeed “poorly known” regrets the CRC, which reveals that the city has not equipped itself with cost accounting “yet required by law” and reports that in parallel, some “expensive innovations” have not had the expected results.