Paris (AFP)

The National Assembly voted on the night of Thursday to Friday the anti-waste bill devoted to "the ecology of everyday life" and the hunt for "all disposable", after two weeks of debate that stretched over the deposit of plastic bottles, postponed.

Socialists and LR came to bring their majority vote for this text, examined at first reading and approved by 49 deputies, faced with five abstentions from elected Communists and Liberties and Territories and a vote against France rebellious.

Deputies and senators will look again at this text in a joint committee at the start of the new school year, before a possible new reading at the Palais Bourbon from January 21.

In the midst of a social movement on pensions, this bill, intended as an environmental marker for Act II of the quinquennium, did not have the desired response. In addition, its image was blurred by the conflict between the government and recycling professionals and community associations over the deposit for recycling plastic bottles.

This subject has taken "far too much space", deplored several LREM deputies, including the president of the commission for sustainable development, the ex-EELV Barbara Pompili, "annoyed by this affair".

Initially, the government wanted to make it a flagship measure with a new gesture for the French, who, as in several European countries, would have paid a "deposit" on their bottles and then recovered a few cents from the euro by bringing them back into dedicated vending machines.

The goal ? Achieve the European collection rate targets of 77% of plastic bottles in 2025 and 90% in 2029, when France levels off at less than 60%.

But waste professionals and communities, who fear losing resources, have stepped up to the plate. And the Ministry of Ecological Transition has resolved to a "compromise".

It finally leaves them until 2023 to try to reach the intermediate collection objectives, failing which, after "consultation", the deposit deposit system for recycling could be "implemented".

- "Manipulations" -

In both camps, accusations of "manipulation" by the lobbies have been spilled. The government "compromise" has convinced neither the right nor the associations of elected officials who fear an "inevitable" order and castigate "a questioning of thirty years of investment" in selective sorting centers.

Among the ecologists, with the exception of Nicolas Hulot or the Tara foundation, favorable to the system, NGOs often hesitated, asking above all for guarantees on re-use (and not recycling).

For the NGO WWF, the bill is overall "very disappointing" and represents a "missed opportunity to get out of the all-disposable society".

The text aims to end single-use plastic packaging in 2040. "Too late" for WWF and "unrealistic" for industry, while Secretary of State Brune Poirson, a proponent of pragmatic ecology, judges that "it would be lying to say that getting out of disposable plastic takes less than twenty years. "

Several other provisions were voted unanimously, including the creation of new polluter pays sectors, which require professionals to contribute financially to the management and recycling of waste related to their products. The most important concerns building and public works.

The Assembly also voted to ban the destruction of unsold unsold goods, such as hygiene products and textiles, which must be donated or recycled from 2022.

Still in this "everyday ecology" favored by "walkers", the bill wants to ban single-use plastic in fast foods for meals served on site. Make way for reusable containers and cutlery, by 2023 at the latest, and no more free plastic toys in children's menus.

In the same logic, the printing of receipts for small sums is bound to disappear, unless expressly requested by the customer.

Against planned obsolescence, especially in electronics, the bill also creates a "repairability index" which will specify whether a product is easy to repair, and wants to facilitate access to spare parts.

Finally, the text opens the way for certain antibiotics to the delivery of drugs to the unit, a campaign commitment from Emmanuel Macron.

© 2019 AFP