Friday, 26 March 2010

Recycling in France


If you are renting out a gîte in France this summer or if you are an expat living in France, you may wonder what to do with your waste.

In villages, towns and cities in France, you will find 3 containers usually next to each other.

An orange, a bleu and a green container:


What to put in the orange container:

Plastic bottles (water, shampoo, milk, conditioner, ketchup, juice, cleaning product, etc).

Tins, sprays, cartons,

Cardboard packaging (cereal boxes, yogurts, etc)


What to put in the blue container:

Newspapers, magazines, white papers and white envelopes, leaflets.

Put wrapping paper and brown envelope in normal bin.

Also take the leaflet from its plastic wrapping (Super U always use this plastic wrapping). Put the plastic in the normal bin.


What to put in the green bin:

Glass bottles, glass jars. Put corks and tops in the normal bin.

If you are unsure about what to put in containers, see the images on each container, they show what you can put it.


Whatever you recycle has to be clean. Ie don’t put a tin of baked beans if the tin is covered with tomato sauce! Rinse it first. Same for the plastic bottles otherwise they will be rejected when they get recycled!


Squash the plastic bottles if possible so they don’t take too much room in the containers. The less room they take, the less often the containers will have to be emptied. That way it will save trips from lorries so it will reduce petrol consumption. We will all save money in the long run! Mairies earn money from our rubbish as it get sold so the more we recycle the more the mairie will earn so our tax will be reduced.


Here are some items that you can’t recycle so therefore have to place in the ‘Normal’ bin:


Light bulbs

Plastic or cardboard plates

Plastic carrier bags

Polystyrene packaging

Yogurt pots


You should find the containers with no trouble. In our small town of Evran in Brittany (France), you will find them in 10 different areas! Each time you live home, you pass one so it is very easy to clear your rubbish on a regular basis.


See my future post about the déchetterie.


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