Since January 1, 2022, the anti-waste and circular economy law (Agec) prohibits the incineration of unsold goods.
Published in November, a study by Ademe (Agency for the environment and energy management) traces the fate of thousands of "non-food" items that we come across every day: clothing, hygiene products , maintenance, toys, furniture…
To do this, 500 companies were contacted to find out what they were doing with these unsold items.
Thus, in 2019, it is estimated that they represented 3% of the turnover of the companies surveyed.
The trifle of 4 billion euros.
Gone up in smoke?
Not quite.
Not all, in any case: 7% are indeed destroyed, that is to say the equivalent of 300 million euros manufactured, packaged and transported for nothing.
Otherwise ?
They are recycled, given to associations, resold or repaired.
Many alternatives to waste exist and are already being used.
If they are intended to be developed - this is the purpose of this new law - the bulk of the efforts remains to be made upstream: more than a third of the trinkets in question are removed from the shelves for reasons related to marketing: end series, change of range or packaging... After the ugly vegetables labeled as such on the shelves of supermarkets and which therefore no longer end up in the scrapyard, some brands no longer hesitate to sell off and highlight their own unsold products in dedicated spaces rather than getting rid of them.
