On January 30, the Secretary of State for the Ecological Environment of France, B é rang è re Couillard, held consultations on the issue of French plastic bottles at an internal meeting, mainly to address the low recycling rate of French plastic bottles. When reviewing the anti-waste law, the local elected officials rejected the proposal to set instructions on plastic bottles.

French television reported that Augustin Jaclin was the head of Lemon Tri, a company that provides recycling machines for plastic bottles. The company has installed 400 recycling machines in various parts of France, mainly in Lille, Paris, Lyon or Marseille.

"This is the place with the lowest sorting rate, and the sorting rate in big cities is less than 20%," explained the business manager of Lemon Tri.

Goal: recycle 50% of plastic waste by 2025

Lemon Tri's machine is mainly used to recycle bottles from companies, cafeterias and sports centers. "We use a reward mechanism," Jaklin explained. "We will provide a reward of one or two cents to everyone who puts the bottle into our machine.".

But for Jaklin, the bottle recycling progress was too slow. He pointed out that "all countries with a collection rate of more than 90% are without exception equipped with a deposit system."

In fact, the EU has already set a collection target for waste recycling: by December 31, 2025, at least 65% (by weight) of packaging waste must be recycled, and 50% of plastic alone must be recycled. The law requires the government to find a solution before the summer.