the essential
Since the extension of sorting instructions, the filling of bins has changed. The volume of residual household waste is decreasing while that of recyclable waste is increasing. The Castres-Mazamet urban community therefore wishes to reverse the pace of its collections by moving to once a week for the yellow bins and once every 15 days for the burgundy bins.
Since January 1, 2023, residents can sort all their household packaging. This extension of sorting instructions has mechanically reduced the tonnage as well as the volume of residual household waste collected door to door. And also filled the yellow sorting bins much more quickly.
Good news for the environment since much more waste can be recycled and also for finances since the treatment of residual household waste has considerably increased. 80% in 5 years in Tarn.
This is why the Castres-Mazamet urban community plans to reverse the pace of its collections in the 14 municipalities in its territory. Until now, the garbage collectors came once a week to pick up the burgundy bins of “classic” garbage and once every two weeks the yellow bins. But these tend to overflow since all the packaging and papers are now sorted. And the Autan wind, quite frequent in the south of the Tarn, causes numerous flights when these ferries are saturated.
A request for an exemption from the prefect
Conversely, the residual household waste bins are emptied. Especially since the urban community distributes individual and collective composters free of charge to users in order to reduce the proportion of fermentable waste. “And it works very well. We have a lot of requests”, affirms Nathalie de Villeneuve, community councilor, delegate in the field of Living environment and sustainable development who therefore had a deliberation voted during the last council of the agglomeration in order to request an exemption from the Tarn prefect to implement this inversion of collection. Because the General Code of Local Authorities requires weekly collection of residual household waste in urban areas with more than 2,000 inhabitants for health reasons.
-A test was carried out in the town of Navès
The Castres-Mazamet agglomeration community supports its request on a full-scale test which has been carried out in the municipality of Navès since October 1, 2023. And the results are “encouraging” according to the elected official. “The feedback from users is generally positive”, affirms Nathalie de Villeneuve who was able to note that this new collection rate has allowed “an optimization of the filling rate of the bins at collection, a reduction in the tonnages of residual household waste of the of around 50% and an increase in recyclable waste of around 15%. “There was no deterioration in the quality of the sorting” further points out the elected official.
So many arguments which should allow this prefectural exemption. Especially since if this fortnightly collection of “classic” waste were to pose a sanitation problem in certain places, “there are devices such as closed bins that can be made available”.
