Paris pledges to halve landfill waste by 2030
Paris has joined 22 other cities and regions in pledging to reduce its waste by half by 2030, as part of a global project named “Coalition C40 Cities”.
The capital has signed a joint declaration to halve the amount of waste sent to landfill or incinerators, and to increase the recovery rate of waste (such as by composting or recycling) by 70% compared to 2015 levels.
The measure aims to reduce the total amount of waste by 87 million tonnes per year. This in turn will dramatically reduce the amount of greenhouse gas that would otherwise be produced through burning of the rubbish.
Anne Hidalgo, mayor of Paris and president of the Coalition 40 Cities group, said: “To reach the most ambitious targets of the [climate change] Paris Agreement, we must urgently transform each aspect of our modern lives, especially when it comes to what we throw away.”
Other cities and regions in the group include London, Copenhagen, Milan, Rotterdam, Catalunya, Tokyo, Dubai, Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Sydney and Tel Aviv, as well as eight US cities including San Francisco, Philadelphia, New York, Washington and Portland, Oregon.
Each of the signatories is set to meet in the US city of San Francisco in September this year, for the group’s first global summit against climate change.
New York mayor Bill de Blasio said: “Continuing to throw more and more waste into landfill is not sustainable. This is why we have created the country’s biggest programme of organic waste collection.”
