Two engineers who are experts in recycling dissect Le Petit Cashé, “the yogurt made with real pieces of waste” concocted by the magazine “Cash Investigation“(Facebook, Twitter, #cashinvestigati). First of all, the label: “It’s paper with ink. There’s polypropylene which keeps the label from tearing and glue, which is glycolized polyethylene terephthalate …”, analysis Lise Nicolas, co-founder of the environmental engineering study office M & Mme Recyclage. Ink, paper, polypropylene, glycolized polyethylene terephthalate, standard polystyrene, expanded polystyrene, and aluminum: seven materials in all! This is why the plastic recyclers in France have decided… not to recycle the yoghurt pot.
“When we have such thin layers, with very little material, so very little resale value, and which are so intricate (that means that they are very difficult to separate), it is not at all economically interesting, in terms of profitability, to seek to recycle this kind of material. It is something which is only intended to be thrown as waste “, specifies Enzo Muttini, co-founder of M & Mme Recyclage. Less than 3% of yoghurt pots are recycled, according to the mission company CITEO, a French player in Extended Producers Responsibility (EPR) for household paper and packaging.
“It’s not recycling. It’s just guilt-free”
So what are yoghurt pots made of? After having been cleaned and crushed into granules, they are mixed with new plastic to become hangers or small flowerpots … but for Nathalie Gontard, research director at the National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the environment (INRAE), this would not be about recycling: “Recycling is about regenerating a material, that is, giving it back its original properties. In reality, it is not about recycling. This is what I call ‘recycling’. During these recycling processes, the plastic degrades slightly, so the material does not have the same properties as the original ones. It must be treated differently or find new outlets for it, and therefore replace the materials with plastic. which have not been a problem so far. ”
“This is the case with the hanger: we are not going to use wood but recycled plastic, continues the scientist. This is the case with the flowerpot: we will no longer use terracotta, which did not pose any environmental problems, but recycled plastic. It is not with this form of so-called recycling that we will solve the problem of plastic waste and its dangerousness. It is absolutely not recycling or the circular economy. It’s just clearing him off. ”
Extract from “Waste: the great illusion”, an investigation by Claire Tesson broadcast Thursday, November 11, 2021 at 9 pm on France 2.
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