Mrs Nelly Olin

Interview with Mrs. Nelly OLIN, Minister of Ecology and Sustainable Development, France

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According to you, what are the main issues in waste policies today: in Europe, and/or in your country?

Our main challenges in the future will be to reduce waste quantities produced and to increase recycling while controlling waste management impacts on health and environment and containing costs. Tensions we observe on some natural resources underline how current these issues still are. As for waste reduction for example, it implies a better use of resources.

Some progress has recently been made in France. I am referring in particular to the emergence of several end-of-life products recycling sectors. These are products such as electric and electronic equipment waste, printed documents that were not solicited – and soon used textiles. But it is also the case in many European countries. This implies in particular a better information of populations, for them to understand how important their role in waste management is.

Some of our neighbours are more advanced than us in terms of recycling. But we made some progress in the field of waste reduction. I think this issue should be taken more seriously into account at UE level. Waste reduction requires to raise French people’s awareness in order for them to act on a day-to-day basis – by putting a STOP AD sticker on their mail box, by drinking tap water –, to act locally, to encourage reuse, repair, etc. But it also implies acting on commercialised products, and the common market requires an action on the European level.

I’d like to underline a last and third challenge, i.e. the local management of waste. A big effort has been made to reduce waste transport. It is good for environment, as road or sea transport consumes fossil fuels and produces greenhouse gas emissions. It is also important in terms of awareness-raising, as this shows that the solution cannot be the sending of waste in other regions and it is important in terms of treatment quality, as this should encourage officials to be more vigilant.

However, the development of recycling increases exchanges of waste. If this enlarged market enables better recovery prices, one should make sure that toxic waste is not sent to other countries and that waste sent away will actually be recycled.

Dramatic events in Ivory Coast or controls carried out in various European harbours show that progress is still needed.

What do you suggest to avoid the abuses that you have just mentioned?

It is vital to clarify responsibilities. Once responsibilities are clear, the various players try to make sure that waste treatment is carried out in adequate conditions. In the field of waste in particular, it is the producer’s or the waste holder’s responsibility to make sure that their waste is treated without harming environment and health. Their role is to select service providers that will do a quality work and, if that is not the case, to take required compensation measures. I also think that damages to the environment should be sanctioned more heavily.

I really hope that discussions conducted for the review of the framework directive will help better take this principle into account.

A better control of this kind of activity is needed in parallel, but strengthened controls should go hind in hand with a clarification of responsibilities.

Lastly, some definitions should be clarified to make sure that we know what we are talking about. And so ongoing discussions on the UE level will make progress in this direction possible. The European Parliament took a decisive stance on the recycling notion by indicating what this notion encompasses and what it does not. The notion of valorisation should also be clarified.

What is your perception of the challenges posed by the social acceptability of waste and waste treatment plants: how should we inform the population? How should we involve the population?

It is a very important challenge for the years to come. The first priority is of course to ensure compliance with the regulation. How can we be credible on the control of waste-related impacts if rules are not observed? This is the reason why I made sure, at the end of 2005, that the new directive on incineration facilities was correctly implemented. This is also why I am very vigilant about the gradual reduction of the number of non-authorised landfills or of used pneumatic dump sites. A big progress has also been made in this field. 942 non-authorised landfills had been identified in September 2004. At the end of January, there were only 251 left and the number of sites concerned is yet going to diminish sharply in the following years. As for pneumatic sites, one third of the 114 identified sites have already been fully evacuated.

These steps are essential as it is very important to put an end to nuisances created by such situations for neighbouring populations.

And yet this is not enough and consultation procedures on the various sites should be improved. More generally, French people should be better informed about waste management. This implies a better use of existing tools, of local information and monitoring commissions, a matter on which France Nature Environnement made us interesting propositions. Relationships with mayors, local public services consultation commissions, etc., also need to be improved. In short, as was asserted by the National Waste Council, we need to shift from communication to information.