INQUIRY EUROPE 1
The fight against waste is spreading to businesses. Pressurized trade channels are obliged to organize themselves. Europe 1 conducted the survey.
The FNAC-Darty group launches a "long-term repair" subscription system at the end of the week to encourage consumers not to throw away machines that can still operate. Just look at the figures from the after-sales service group: last year, of the 2.7 million washing machines purchased in France, 71% were to replace another machine down . Except that these failures can be repaired without even changing a room in two out of three cases.
On washing machines and dishwashers, it is estimated that nearly half of what is thrown in France each year could be repaired fairly easily.
A subscription to 10 euros per month
The principle put in place by Darty is to pay 10 euros per month so that, thereafter, all the repairs are taken care of as long as the spare parts are made available by the manufacturer. That is to say, 8 or 9 years on average.
So in the long run, it can come back expensive, compared to 200 or 500 euros that costs a new machine, but the distributor plays on two strings sensitive. First, he uses the argument, which remains to prove: "It will still cost you less than buying one or two machines in ten years". Then the brand plays on the ecological side.
"The notions of reliability and sustainability progress"
Vincent Gufflet, commercial director of the group, explains: "It is a feeling, or a reflection, which reaches more and more consumers.We clearly see that this notion of reliability, of durability, is something that progresses. And so in relation to the general context, we also want to put a healthy pressure on our supplier partners, builders, to say 'you see: you are not labeled durable choice, maybe you should change that and that' ".
Pressure is also coming from the public authorities: the anti-waste bill, which comes back to the Assembly in December, will force manufacturers to indicate on the label the duration of availability of spare parts for a product. This duration should even reach 10 years minimum according to the new European rules planned for 2021.
The law sets a target of 50% recycled waste
Remains an issue on unsold products or end of life to avoid throwing them. And here too the law has created, for fifteen years, recycling targets to achieve for different sectors. Appliance, in fact, is rather good student: 80% of used machines are recovered and recycled instead of ending up in the landfill. The percentage falls to 57% in the furniture sector and even to 38% for textiles. The law, however, sets a target of 50% recycled waste.
The general public did not take the good habits. And the industrialists either. For economic reasons, explains Alain Claudot, General Manager of Eco-TLC, the organization in charge of recycling in the textile sector: "The constraints, it is the presence of a recycling industry able to return to a kilo of recycled cotton, or a kilogram of recycled wool, which will be economically competitive compared to the same kilo of virgin material.Today it is much more expensive because we have not yet industrialized this process ".
There is therefore a shared responsibility for industry and consumers. In the textile sector, consumers buy 60% more clothes than 15 years ago and keep them for half as long.