Company waste management: what needs to be put in place

Verified 02 February 2024 - Directorate for Legal and Administrative Information (Prime Minister)

Any company that produces or holds waste shall be responsible for their management. It has to identify its waste, set up sorting at source, keep track of it in a register and comply with its other regulatory requirements.

Company responsibility for waste

The company is responsible for the management of its waste. This applies to companies in one or more of the following situations:

  • The company's activity waste product.
  • The staff produces waste.
  • The company is in possession of waste.
  • The company carries out processing operations waste, leading to a change in the nature or composition of such waste (grouping, recycling, etc.).

This responsibility implies that the company must ensure compliance with all regulations applicable to the management of its waste.

Non-compliance with these obligations is subject to sanctions.

Penalties for abandonment of waste

The fact ofto abandon, deposit or cause to be deposited waste is liable to a criminal penalty. It's from 4 years in prison and €150,000 of fine (natural person) or €750,000of fine (legal person).

FYI  

The failure to comply with a formal notice under a waste prevention and management offense may be severely punished when the fauna, flora or water quality is directly exposed to a immediate risk of serious and lasting harm (may last at least 7 years).

The penalty shall then be 3 years imprisonment and €250,000 fine (natural person) or €1,250,000 fine (legal person). This amount may be increased up to three times the advantage derived from the commission of the infringement.

In order to ensure compliance with their obligations, companies must determine the characteristics of their waste. Specifically, for each waste item, it is necessary to:

  1. Determine if this is a waste dangerous, including waste containing persistent organic pollutants
  2. Determine if this is a product new non-food or a product food
  3. Determine if this is a waste to be sorted at source (paper, metals, plastics, glass, wood, bio-waste, mineral fractions and plaster)

Textiles will also have to be sorted at source at 1er January 2025.

What is hazardous waste?

Any waste is considered hazardous if it has one or more hazardous properties (indicated by the abbreviation “HP” with a number).

Any waste that does not have any of the properties that make a waste hazardous is considered non-hazardous.

Non-hazardous waste that contains hazardous waste is considered hazardous waste (for example: a jerry can of petrol).

FYI  

In order to identify with certainty whether a waste is hazardous waste, the company must find its number. A decision by theEuropean Union lists all categories of waste. They are detailed in theindex document.

The hazardous waste is indicated by an asterisk (*), after their 6-digit number.

Classification of waste categories

European Union

Pour en savoir plus

One European Commission document provides technical recommendations for the classification of waste. It can help understand how to classify waste and identify hazardous waste.

What is a waste that contains persistent organic pollutants?

Persistent organic pollutants are a set of substances that degrade slowly, accumulate in living organisms, are toxic and easily transported over long distances.

They are listed in Annex IV to a European regulation, the text of which is regularly updated by Parliament.

FYI  

Waste containing persistent organic pollutants which are hazardous within the meaning of the definition of hazardous waste, are subject to hazardous waste obligations.

Companies have an obligation to to separate at source the waste they produce or hold.

All obligations are detailed in the fact sheetobligation to sort waste at source.

Maintenance of a waste tracking register

Companies should keep for at least 3 years a register in which are listed all information concerning their waste, namely:

  • The quantity, nature and origin of the waste that the company produces, transfers to a third party or takes over
  • The quantity of products and materials resulting from the preparation for reuse, recycling or other recovery operations of such waste
  • And, where appropriate, the destination, frequency of collection, means of transport and method of treatment or disposal envisaged for such waste

The detailed content of the register which needs to be kept is available on Legifrance.

In case of control (e.g. by the municipal police), the company will have to provide this register.

FYI  

The company is not obliged to keep this register for waste declared on Trackwaste.

Statement on Trackwaste Platform

The state has put in place a on-line service for waste tracking slip management. This is Trackwaste.

You must declare on the Trackwaste portal the following waste:

  • Waste dangerous, including those containing persistent organic pollutants
  • Asbestos waste
  • Refrigerant waste
  • Infectious Care Activity Waste (DASRI)
  • Waste end-of-life vehicles

This declaration shall be made via waste tracking slips, in a dematerialized manner, on the platform.

Information on other categories of waste can be reported via Trackwaste. It is not mandatory for non-listed categories of waste.

Managing the traceability of waste and asbestos (Trackwaste)

Please note

Where the information is declared by the company, it shall be retained and made available to the declarant on the online service. This will enable them to be communicated to the authorities in charge of controls.

The declaration of all the waste of the company shall exempt from the obligation to keep the waste tracking register.

Penalties provided for

For companies affected by the obligation to keep a waste tracking register, two penalties are provided for where there is no register, refusal to provide it or incorrect information. They shall also apply for offenses relating to the declaration on Trackwaste.

These are:

  • The fine for contraventions of 4e class, of an amount of €750of fine (natural person), or €3,750 of fine (legal persons)
  • One offense, exposing to 4 years imprisonment and €150,000 of fine (natural person), or €750,000 fine (legal persons)

The two penalties may be added together.

Waste management with a view to recovery

The company is responsible from the management of its waste until its disposal, or valorization final, even where the waste is transferred for treatment to a third party.

The company must to ensure or manage its waste by a third party (company of collection, transport, recovery of waste, etc.).

The management and sorting of waste produced or held by the company shall be carried out with the aim of recovering that waste. Three possibilities management systems exist.

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Recovering waste yourself

The company can recover its waste itself, provided it complies with certain obligations.

Waste treatment or storage as part of their recovery must take place in waste treatment plants (ICPE), which fall under the PCI nomenclature subject to declaration, registration or authorization. The company must ensure that it respects the legislation applicable to such installations.

The hierarchy of processing modes waste must be used. It consists of prioritizing, in order:

  1. Preparation for reuse
  2. Recycling
  3. Any other recovery, including energy recovery
  4. Elimination

FYI  

Construction and demolition waste may be used for development, rehabilitation or construction work, provided that:

  • The company is in a position to justify to the competent authorities (its mayor, president ofECPI or prefect) the nature of the waste used and its use in a recovery purpose and not elimination.
  • Either the company does not bury or deposit waste on agricultural landor it buries and deposits only waste in the following cases:
    • Use in agricultural land development works
    • Use as fertilizing materials or culture media
  • Either the recovery of such waste is not not accompanied by a financial contribution, or it is accompanied by a financial contribution and the project is a road work or quarry in operation

Waste recovered by the company producing or holding it shall not be subject to the obligation to sort at source.

If the absence of sorting affects their ability to be prepared for reuse, recycling or other recovery operations, they must be sorted at source.

Dispose of the waste to his community’s public waste collection service

If the company produces or takes possession of less than 1,100 liters of waste per week, it may benefit from the public waste collection service of its community, provided that:

  • She's there authorized : communities have the right not to permit the collection of company waste.
  • The public waste collection service allows a sufficiently fine sort to enable companies to meet their sorting obligations.

Please note

One royalty may be required by the community to manage company waste.

Who shall I contact

Dispose of the waste to a collection or transport intermediary or directly to the operator of a recovery facility

Waste not dangerous and no inert cannot be supported by a storage and incineration plant only if the company certifies compliance with its sorting obligations.

To justify it, the company must transmit every year the operator of the storage and incineration plant, prior to receipt of any waste for the current year, a sworn certificate. It must be signed by the company's legal representatives. The certificate shall state:

  • The list of company sorting obligations
  • A description of the elements capable of demonstrating compliance with those obligations, and in particular the list of separate collections set up and the associated sorting instructions

When the waste is transferred to a third party, the company must provide all the information necessary for its treatment.

Every year, the company to which the waste is transferred must issue a certificate to the company delivering the waste. The certificate shall state, in respect of waste collected separately for recovery in the previous year:

  • Quantities of waste expressed in tons
  • The nature of the waste
  • Their final recovery destinations

The model attestation to be completed is available (Annex I-A):

Template for the certificate attesting to the disposal of your company's waste

To find where and to whom to dispose of company waste, SINOE Waste maintains waste directories of economic activities:

Find where to deposit waste from economic activities (Yearbook)

Warning  

The company delivering the waste shall ensure that the person to whom the waste is returned is authorized to take care of them. Whether the waste is given to a person or company that is not authorized to support them, the company who handed them over remains responsible for the damage caused by such waste. The person or company who has taken over the waste illegally will also be considered as co-liable for the damage.

Penalties provided for

In the event of non-compliance with the company’s waste management obligations, the following procedure shall apply:

  1. The company shall be notified the facts alleged, the penalties incurred and the measures prescribed to regularize his situation. It may submit its observations.
  2. After 10 days, if the situation is not regularized, she may be forced to pay a fine of up to €15,000 (natural person) or €75,000 (legal person), and be given formal notice to carry out the necessary operations within a specified period.
  3. If the period of notice has elapsed and the company has not complied, the State shall be penalized by one or more of the following measures:
  • Record an amount equal to the cost of carrying out prescribed measureswhich will be returned as they are implemented
  • Immediately pay the necessary fees the execution of the prescribed measures
  • Suspend, at its expense, the installations and structures, the carrying out of works and operations, or the carrying out of activities which give rise to the infringements found
  • Pay a daily penalty payment of a maximum of €1,500 until the prescribed operations have been carried out
  • Pay a fine of up to €150,000 (natural person) or €750,000 (legal person)

FYI  

The failure to comply with a formal notice under a waste prevention and management offense may be severely punished when the fauna, flora or water quality is directly exposed to a immediate risk of serious and lasting harm (at least 7 years).

The penalty shall then be 3 years imprisonment and €250,000 fine (natural person) or €1,250,000 fine (legal person). This amount may be increased up to three times the advantage derived from the commission of the infringement.

Companies are sometimes subject to other waste management obligations.

In case of doubt, the company can ask for information from its professional organization.

Tableau - Obligations of companies relating to the management of certain wastes

The company is concerned if...

Does the company have obligations?

What are the obligations?

The company produces, imports or distributes new non-food products intended for sale (clothing, household products, furniture...)

The company is subject to specific obligations relating to the management of new non-food unsold goods

All information is detailed in the dedicated card

The company produces, imports or distributes food products

The company is subject to specific obligations relating to the management of unsold foodstuffs

All information is detailed in the dedicated card

The company manages inert waste

The company is subject to specific obligations relating to the management of inert waste

To learn more, the company can inquire with its professional organization and to the next link.

The company manages hazardous waste

The company is subject to specific obligations relating to the management of hazardous waste

All information is detailed in the dedicated card

The company produces waste subject to Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR)

The company is subject to specific obligations relating to the management of waste subject to extended producer responsibility.

To learn more, the company may inquire with its eco-organization.

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