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Wild waste, stop at the invasion

The wild dumps are a global problem and France is not exempt.

But, fighting against these illegal deposits can lead to tragedy: in summer 2019, the mayor of a small town in the south of France died under the wheels of a van, whose driver came to dump his waste illegally, instead to deliver them to the nearest dump. So, how to get rid of a problem that is both invasive and polluting?

An ocean of waste
We are in a meander of the Seine, the Loop of Chanteloup, about thirty kilometers from Paris, and in front of us is an ocean of waste that wavers over piles of 2 m high: with 7,000 tons of waste spread over more than 47 Ha, it is the largest of the wild dumps of the French territory. Here is the realm of construction, demolition sector; these materials, which can be dangerous - asbestos, solvents, etc. - come mostly from destroyed buildings, and construction site managers did not see fit to deposit them in an official dump.

This wild dump, born in 2012, has taken an impressive scale from 2017, and no administration of the three cities that surround it: Chanteloup-les-Vignes, Carrières-sous-Poissy and Triel-sur-Seine, has really acted to stem the arrival of waste.

A polluting story

The loop of Chanteloup - or Plain of Chanteloup - is an old market gardening zone divided into plots where agriculture was made possible by the spreading of sewers of Paris, which fertilized the grounds. But after 50 years of spreading, it became clear that the earth was contaminated with toxic heavy metals, especially lead. In 2000, the prefect of Yvelines signed an order prohibiting any culture intended for human consumption, but despite all, for lack of provision of a reception area for Travelers, a slum inhabited by Roma continued on these polluted lands until dismantled in 2017.

For Alban Bernard, president of the association Stop Décharges Sauvages, if the deposits of waste had already begun in 2012, they really exploded from 2017.

Flight of responsibilities

When we ask Joel Mancel, the mayor of Triel-sur-Seine for more than 15 years, about the actions put in place to prevent the development of this wild dump, he admits that apart from the issuing of traffic decrees on the area, nothing was done, officials were not prosecuted.

To justify the inaction, the mayor invokes the complexity due to the multiplication of small owners on the plain and the successive administrative reforms.

In fact, the "agglomeration community of the 2 banks of the Seine", which included 12 municipalities including Triel-sur-Seine, Chanteloup-les-Vignes and Carrières-sous-Poissy, was transformed in 2016, in the perspective of Grand-Paris and the Olympic Games of 2024, in "Greater Paris Seine and Oise urban community", GPSEO, this time with 73 municipalities.

Nevertheless, the mayors of the 3 communes concerned were already, and still are, stakeholders of the different administrations.

Land sold off

The plain of Chanteloup is divided into parcels that belong to more than 200 owners, but the state offers the purchase of land at a rate of 3 euros per m², which is very low. For some members of the Association of Landowners and Farmers of the Plain (APEA), allowing waste to accumulate has kept prices as low as possible.

In response, the mayor of Triel-sur-Seine invokes a tariff set when it was necessary to collect the sand necessary for the construction of the Normandy highway, which goes back to the 60s.

However, according to Antony Effroy, opposition municipal councilor at the Carrières-sous-Poissy town hall and president of the association Rives-de-Seine-nature-environment: " an agricultural charter was signed in 2014 between the owners and the community of agglomerations, in which it commits itself to take charge of signage and access. Farmers trusted, but we can see that this mission was not properly ensured . "

And considering that the prefect should have taken measures because of the dangerousness of the waste, the association has initiated an administrative procedure for "faulty deficiency of the State".

In the Plain, a beginning of resolution

Perhaps the perspective of Greater Paris and the Olympics is it making things happen. Secretary of State for the Environment Brune Poirson, who visited the site in October 2019, pledged state aid of 800,000 euros to start clearing the ocean of waste, starting in 2020. But, the associations speak of a cost of more than 4 million to completely rid the plain of Chanteloup.

According to the mayor of Triel-sur-Seine, Joel Mancel, there is no real estate project planned in the immediate future, apart from the extension of a depot of department stores Lidl. But, one can easily imagine that once cleared, these 47 Ha could excite the greed of the promoters.

In Laigneville, end of the wild deposits

At 80 km in the north of Paris, the mayor of Laigneville, Christophe Dietrich, faced with huge wild deposits around the town, took up the problem by starting from his arrival at the town hall in 2014, "Returns to the sender".

To do this, this former police officer conducted the investigation from the waste themselves, going up the track to officials to deliver their own waste home. Today, he brings the violators to the town hall to pick up their garbage, which allows him to verbalize them.

And noting that "waste is waste", Christophe Dietrich has small hunting cameras - which are triggered automatically when we pass in front - at strategic locations, so that no new pile of waste begins discreetly on the edge of fields.

These actions seem to bear fruit, since since the beginning of the year, there have been only two wild deposits in Laigneville.

Large scale solutions

There are more than 180 wild dumps in France, most of them contain construction waste: while the contractors charge customers to dispose of rubbish in the official waste disposal centers, they prefer to deposit their waste in discrete places. To alleviate this invasive and polluting phenomenon, the State is planning on the one hand to create new waste disposal centers and on the other hand to make them free.

In the loop of Chanteloup as in the 179 other French wild dumps, when, finally, we will have evacuated the waste, we really hope that the measures will be taken so that it does not start again.

► Learn more:
- Association Rives de Seine Nature Environment
- Stop Wild Discharges Association
- APEA.

slideshow

Antony Effroy, councilor at Carrières-sous-Poissy and president of the association Rives-de-Seine-Environment.
© RFI / Agnès Rougier

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Big report - Wild waste, stop at the invasion

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The wild dumps are a global problem and France is not exempt.

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