Detox. No, there are not 223 million tons of waste in France per year on sexual products.

Where does the intox come from?

In the program “Quotidien” broadcast on TMC Thursday, May 18, the sex columnist Maïa Mazaurette announces this incredible figure : “In France, it is estimated that condoms, sex toys and other lubricants alone represent 223 million tonnes of waste. »

That is three tons of waste per inhabitant and per year, for waste related to sexuality alone. A figure that seems disproportionate, when we know that the total production of waste per inhabitant in France is approximately five tonnes per year. And that most of them concern activities related to construction or food.

Why is this wrong?

With Déintox, Maïa Mazaurette explains that she found the source of the information in an “English study”. Which she then transposed to France, “as the population of the two countries is the same, as well as the methods of sexual consumption”.

In fact, this study does exist in the English-language press. Glamor Magazine, for example, echoes it. Except that, in this article written in English, we can read that “condoms, sex-toys, lubricant or the contraceptive pill have a significant environmental impact by contributing to the 222.9 million tonnes of waste produced in the United Kingdom in one year. year”. In summary: the figure of 223 tons actually corresponds to an estimate of all the waste produced in the country, over one year. And not only waste related to sex life. Maïa Mazaurette recognizes a “speed error” which she intends to “correct”.