With much of the rest of the world’s governments fudging around the edge of greenhouse gas regulations and carbon-based industry minimisation, one country is taking a serious stance. France has implemented a series of laws that will seriously impact any plastic use, and also apply transportation and advertising standards to help reduce fossil-based consumption. By Jeremy Torr.
Paris, January 2022. “Should we impose a (plastics) ban in six months time? That’s impossible!” admits French president Emmanuel Macron. Instead, he says, the French government must take an incremental approach to the use of fossil-generated materials and gases. So it is planning to gradually move towards a climate friendly legislative framework – but unlike many other global laggards it is starting right now.
“We need to ban single use plastic immediately” - President Macron. Courtesy BioPlastics.
“What we need to do is to ban single use plastic immediately. That’s the most useful and needed,” he asserts. “We need a substitute with a lower ecological footprint.”
Accordingly, the French legislative assembly has moved up a notch from last year’s ban on the use of plastic straws and coffee cups, and has outlawed the use of plastic wrapping on some 30 types of common fruit and vegetables including apples and pears, leeks, carrots, tomatoes, potatoes, and the like. From this January.
“This (will be) a real revolution" said Macron, adding that it is another step in the country’s commitment to totally phase out single-use plastics by 2040. Other approaches to minimising waste plastic – principally through reducing discarded drinks bottles – are being planned for later in 2022, when government-sponsored public drinks fountains will be mandated across urban centres countrywide.
According to the French government, over 30% of fruit and veg currently sold in supermarkets comes in completely wasted plastic wrapping. “This is an outrageous amount" said the Environment Ministry in a statement. “The new law aims at cutting back the use of throwaway plastic and boosting (substitutes) with other materials or reusable and recyclable packaging". It estimates that the new legislation could save around a billion items of single use plastic ending up in landfill every year. Plastic wrapping will still be allowed for fragile produce like berries and peaches, but will be gradually phased over the next few years.
Already magazines in France are not allowed to be sold in plastic wrapping, and fast-food restaurants are forbidden to use plastic straws and free plastic toy promotions to sell new lines.
Macron has said that his government’s immediate goal is not to just arbitrarily ban things – but instead to rapidly phase out the use of materials that end up in landfill and cannot be recycled. And rather than talk loftily about it, his government is taking immediate action.
As well as the single use plastic ban, plastic wrap ban and water fountain initiatives, France has legislation in the works that will treat automotive adverts in the same way as most of the world already imposes on tobacco products and advertising.
From this year, French car adverts will need to advise of alternative transport options. Courtesy Renault.
Over the next 12 months, car makers will need to add a rider to all their adverts – in print, online, broadcast media and on billboards – advising potential buyers to consider non-carbon transportation alternatives. These will include messages encouraging “ …walking or cycling for short trips”; “ … carpooling options” or “ … taking public transport." And if automotive advertisers forget to include these messages or deliberately leave them out, the French government will whack them with a fine of up to EUR 50,000. Serious stuff – but with French transport estimated to contribute over 30% of the country’s total greenhouse gas emissions, a worthwhile effort.
It is no surprise that the plastics makers are crying long and loud about the new packaging legislation, citing collapsing industries and jobless workers on all sides. But some market analysts are seeing a positive side the new regulations.
“It is estimated that in Europe, out of the eight million tonnes of plastic produced per year for single-use packaging, 1.5 million tonnes could already be removed,” noted one packaging spokesperson. “And that represents about EUR 7billion of additional turnover potential for cardboard manufacturers.”
“We need business and government to have reduction, reuse and refill as their absolute priority. This is about putting action … that clearly puts recycling as a last resort after all efforts to reduce, reuse and refill have been exhausted,” agreed Jo Morley, of the City to Sea sustainability advocacy group.