It is the oldest, but also the most polluting household waste incinerator in France according to a study unveiled last week by Zero Waste Association Toulouse. The Mirail energy recovery plant, located in the south-west of the Pink City since 1969, is beginning to show signs of dilapidation. So much so that 46 million euros will be spent over the next two years to bring it up to standard for nitrogen oxide emissions and continue to treat 285,000 tonnes of waste each year, some of which comes from other unequipped departments.
A necessary expenditure but which will not make it possible to respond to its obsolescence, announced by 2032. To think about its future, prior consultation, under the leadership of the National Commission for Public Debate, opens on Tuesday for a period of nearly two months. With a central question: should we renovate the Mirail incinerator to extend its lifespan until 2040? Rebuild it in situ or elsewhere, for commissioning in 2030 which would allow us to see it coming until 2070? Or simply leave it as it is after the work to bring it up to standard before closing it in ten years?
These different scenarios, the cost of which varies between 150 and 330 million euros, will be discussed during the many meetings scheduled for the next few days. During these moments of exchange, the debate will be extended to the overall management of waste on the territory of Decoset. This joint syndicate manages the treatment and recovery of household waste from 152 municipalities in the Haute-Garonne thanks to the Mirail incinerator and the more recent Bessières incinerator, both under public service delegation.
Its president, Vincent Terrail-Novès, does not hide that “the simplest solution is that of rebuilding on the spot, but we have not yet taken a decision, the consultation must make it possible to enrich the debate”, assures you. -he. If, thanks to the current land, it would make it possible to maintain, in parallel with the reconstruction, the activity of the current factory, it also remains the most expensive solution. If the possibility of moving her elsewhere is discussed, this eventuality seems more than utopian. Which municipality would agree to see an incinerator set up on its territory?
“The nuisances, we are the ones who take them”
Even local residents are under no illusions. Within the very active association of inhabitants of Lafourguette, the incinerator file has always been followed closely. It is even him who was partly at the origin of its creation more than fifty years ago. “At the time, it was responsible for a lot of nuisance, more than today, and we were mobilized against this pollution”, recalls Alain Boubée, its president. So, there is no question for these residents not to participate in the debate. “The nuisances, we are the ones who take them. But neither is it simply a problem that only concerns the metropolis. Do we have to incinerate waste from other departments here? Besides, we have to treat the incinerator as such. The sizing of the future factory, if it has to stay there, must not be calculated to supply the hot water network, ”says this inhabitant.
The incinerator produces 200 to 250 Gigawatt hours each year, which can supply heating to nearly 40,000 homes in Mirail and Montaudran as well as the University Hospital of Rangueil. This is one of the arguments that prevails for its maintenance and its reconstruction on the spot.
Reduce waste at source
A way of approaching the problem which is not the right one according to Thomas Guilpain of Zero Waste Toulouse. For him the question is not so much whether the incinerator will be rebuilt here or elsewhere, but how big it will be in the future. “We are told that there will be a need for an incinerator of the same capacity. But at no time are we talking about waste reduction. If we have a real reduction policy, we can divide the capacity of the incinerator by two. However, we are told about an identical incinerator, thinking that we could go and look for waste elsewhere. If we say that there will always be an incinerator to take them all, there is no point in making an effort”, deplores this activist whose association has produced a voluminous report on the future of the incinerator.
He hopes to move the lines, encourage politicians to be more proactive, especially on the issue of bio-waste which represents a third of the content of our garbage cans. By also putting means on the table for these treatment methods, which avoid seeing organic matter go up in smoke when it could be transformed into compost. And while regretting that the question was not anticipated several years ago.