This Tuesday, the CGT of the waste and sanitation sector announced the suspension from Wednesday of the garbage collectors’ strike in Paris and the blocking of incinerators, which have caused the accumulation of garbage in the streets of the capital since March 6. last.
Undoubtedly a relief for the inhabitants of Paris who see, little by little, the streets being relieved of the mounds of garbage bags and other waste which have been the daily life of their sidewalks for several weeks. But what has accumulated during this period is not going to disappear in a weekend.
More than 3,000 tonnes collected in four days
Bad point for our friends the rats, the trend is towards a gradual return to normal both in terms of garbage collection and incineration. According to the Paris City Hall, if there were 6,600 tons of waste left in the streets last Tuesday, this volume fell to 5,800 tons on Wednesday, 4,300 tons on Thursday and only 3,200 tons remained on Friday. Suffice to say that the level drops visibly.
Because if the CGT announced the end of the strike this week, many strikers had already returned to work and there were only a few handfuls left in recent days, according to the Town Hall and the collection operations are going well.
Since the beginning of the week, between 150 and 200 dumpsters have been constantly roaming the city to collect garbage, favoring “black spots”, which justifies the significant differences from one district to another. A number “higher than normal”, insists the Paris City Hall.
20 to 30% more trucks to clean the streets
In the same way, the cleaning services deploy 20 to 30% more trucks to clean the streets of the capital in order to “erase” the residues of waste which adorn the bitumen, even after the passage of the garbage collectors.
If the Town Hall refuses to give an estimate as to a possible date of return to normal, it gives as an example the situation of 2019 when it took less than a week to evacuate 3,000 tonnes of waste.
At this rate, the streets of Paris would regain their original appearance next weekend. But the reality also depends on incinerators where the status is a little less stable.
The incinerators are unlocked…
Joined by 20 minutes, Syctom, an establishment that manages the three incinerators in Paris and a transfer site, wants to be reassuring. On the Saint-Ouen site, the end of the strike was voted more than a week ago and activity has since returned to its “almost normal” level in terms of receiving waste. If the ovens had been turned off for maintenance, the first was turned on again this Friday. In the meantime, the waste was transferred to other incinerators in the region (Gennevilliers, Argenteuil, Bouqueval, etc.) as part of the “relief plan” put in place at the start of the strikes.
This plan allowed all the small skips to come and unload their contents and get back to work. Same thing at the Issy-les-Moulineaux incinerator, unblocked on Thursday March 23, blocked several times, in particular by filter dams, incineration has resumed since the weekend of March 25.
…And absorb the surplus
In Ivry-sur-Seine, where the Prefect had decided to requisition staff to receive the skips, the ovens were turned on at the start of the week. Despite a new blockage this Thursday evening, it was released this Friday morning and is functioning normally.
“We are catching up with the tonnage thanks to an activity which oscillates between 110 and 120% of normal activity”, explains a spokesperson for Syctom, who welcomes the success of the emergency plan which mobilized 11 external incinerators, five sites transfers and two landfills in the region.
A hypothetical situation since the opponents of the pension reform are not giving up and several central trade unions claim that the end of strikes and blockages is only a breather before new actions.