A new guide of good practices to fight against plastic pollution

Initiators and leaders of the Charter, IFGR, the Tara Ocean Foundation and CNR want to create a community of local elected officials committed to fighting at the source of plastic pollution in their territories since 2020. It currently brings together more than 150 signatories, small towns and cities from all over France, all concerned by the scourge of plastic, a material that has become an essential part of globalization and is now uncontrollable. Its production reaches 350 million tons per year and more than 40% of plastic is used only once, before being thrown away! Plastic is everywhere and infiltrates, in multiple forms, from the ground to the aquatic environment. Every minute, the equivalent of a garbage truck full of plastic waste is dumped into the Ocean.

Local elected officials on the front line

The awareness is there, fortunately, even if the challenge seems immense.  All levels of the plastic production and use chain must evolve and action must be stepped up from the international to the local level, to combine regulatory impetus, research and innovation and solutions.

By launching the “My territory is committed: rivers without plastic, ocean protected” initiative in 2020, IFGR and its two partners wanted to place local elected officials at the heart of this mobilization, convinced that they can act both at the source of the problem, to treat the causes and not just the consequences, and in a concrete way, by engaging citizens, companies, public institutions, etc., at their side

As facilitators of this approach and catalysts for the exchange of practices, we also wish to be able to support the signatory local authority in this progress approach. This guide of good practices, coordinated by the Tara Ocean Foundation, is an illustration of this.

Regulatory framework and best practices

This guide provides municipalities and inter-municipalities with 3 main types of information:

• The current and future regulatory framework on plastic waste,
• Proposals for action in line with their legal responsibilities,
• Ways to mobilize the actors in their territory, in order to go further.

Produced in close collaboration with the Charter’s partners (Ministry of Ecological Transition, ADEME, VNF and the associations of elected representatives AMF and APVF), this guide has also been the subject of exchanges with ARBE, Southern Region, and WWF to complement what is already proposed to mayors.

It is approved by the European Week for Waste Reduction, which takes place from November 20 to 28, coordinated in France by ADEME, and has received the support of the Ministry of Ecological Transition for its realization.