in the metropolis of Rouen, some residents are trying to collect their food waste

In the metropolis of Rouen, the municipality of Sotteville-lès-Rouen has set up the collection of bio-waste.

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The metropolis of Rouen is experimenting with the collection of bio-waste in the municipality of Sotteville-lès-Rouen.  (BORIS HALLIER / RADIOFRANCE)

Since 1er Last January, communities must offer residents a solution for collecting their food waste: peelings, egg shells and other organic residues, so that they can then be reused. But in reality, it is not so simple to set up, especially in collective housing. Some municipalities have already started collecting bio-waste. Others, like the metropolis of Rouen, are at the experimental stage. A test which began two months ago in certain districts of Sotteville-lès-Rouen.

For these residents it is a new reflex to adopt: “It’s a bit annoying, but hey, we do it anyway, eh!” Jocelyne was one of the first to collect one of the small buckets distributed by the Metropolis: “My neighbor, he’s a stickler for that. Huh, Pierre? You like to bring your little bucket there. We can’t keep that in the house for three or four days, it smells. But hey, really, now , we got used to it. It’s good for the environment, it’s good.”

“I wouldn’t do this if it was a mile away.”

Like her, 10,000 residents of these HLMs and co-ownerships are affected by the experiment. Claude presents this famous bio-bucket to us: “There are a lot of things, it’s almost full and you can’t feel it. There, we ate endives, there are banana peels, orange peels…” To get rid of this bio-waste, it happens at the bottom of your building, in one of the 23 bins installed in Sotteville: “I wouldn’t do that if it was a kilometer away but here, at 150-200 meters, it’s easy.” These bins are emptied every Wednesday by Catherine and Alaoua. They too, as garbage collectors, had to adapt: The truck is brand new. We haven’t had it long. We rarely refused trash cans. It happened at the beginning, there was a lot of household trash. Once we had grass, so we can’t take it there.”

The metropolis of Rouen is experimenting with the collection of bio-waste in the municipality of Sotteville-lès-Rouen.  (BORIS HALLIER / RADIOFRANCE)

“We must ensure that there is no plastic etc., confirms Alaoua. There, these are biodegradable products, food leftovers. It’s a good product.” A good product that will make biogas and fertilizers. More than a ton of bio-waste is collected each week and for the moment, the rats are staying away, assures Mayor Alexis Ragache : “There were fears about the arrival of rodents. We will obviously evaluate the use and quality of the materials that were used. For the moment, we have no feedback from residents on this subject.” This test must continue until this summer before a possible generalization to all 71 municipalities in the Rouen metropolitan area.


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