In Rennes, industrialists and small structures are trying to relaunch the glass deposit -

20 Minutes

  • In Rennes, a glass container washing system has been set up.

  • Marketed at Biocoop, these products must be brought back by customers but without a monetary compensation system.

  • Set up by the company Uzaje, the washing sector will be provided by the integration company La Feuille d'Erable, and could create jobs. 

“There is no monetary system.

We trust our customers and their goodwill ”.

Isabelle Baur is in charge of innovation at Scarabée Biocoop, a cooperative of nine organic stores and three restaurants in the Rennes metropolitan area.

For the past few days, the sign it represents has been testing a system of instructions on certain jars and glass bottles called "Bring me back".

An initiative that may seem simple on the front but requires very important logistics.

Once returned to the store, the containers must be washed before being redistributed to suppliers.

Initiated by the start-up Uzaje, the operation has already attracted fifteen producers in the Rennes region, from the small dairy to the agrifood giant Triballat, or 150 references in store.

“It's a change of habit for consumers.

We have to convince, ”warns Emmanuel Auberger, founder of Uzaje.

“Our customers are very sensitive to it.

They already come with their bags or containers for bulk.

With the Covid crisis, we have the impression that we have to wrap everything in plastic.

This is not our vision, ”continues Isabelle Baur.

Yvon works at La feuille d'Erable in Rennes.

The integration company has opened a station to wash containers with a deposit system.

- C. Allain / 20 Minutes

Busy filling his bottle with shower gel, Julien confirms.

“In Belgium, everyone brings back their bottles of beer and it works very well.

I do not understand that we cannot reuse our containers rather than recycle them ”, explains the client of Biocoop de Cleunay.

Four jobs today, thirty tomorrow?

To convince producers to accept this instruction, the Uzaje company had to offer them an ecological and economical washing solution.

"We launched our station three years ago to wash festival glasses and coffee machine cups, but it was not industrial," recalls Eric Challan-Belval, founder of La Feuille d'Erable.

Well known in Rennes for the collection of cardboard boxes, the integration company had to expand its washing line to accommodate jars of jam or jars of crème fraîche and yoghurts.

The activity of festivals being stopped due to the Covid, this new contract comes at the right time.

From four full-time, the station could eventually employ twenty to thirty people, most of them with disabilities.

All the players are now hoping to convince large retailers and food manufacturers to get involved in this deposit project.

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  • Food industry

  • 20 minutes video

  • Handicap

  • Insertion

  • Waste

  • Organic

  • Glass

  • Recycling

  • Reindeer

  • Sorting

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