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https://reasonstobecheerful.world/besancon-food-waste-composting-capital-of-france/>
"On a blue-skied summer morning, Place Pasteur in the historic center of
Besançon is abuzz with colorful market stalls selling trinkets and antiques.
But it’s also here that residents bring a different kind of valuable good every
weekday, to give away for free.
As time ticks by, individuals and families stroll over to a trash can with a
green lid at one end of the square, open it and empty containers brought from
home filled with banana skins, egg shells, carrot peel, zucchini heads, parsley
stalks and more.
“I tried setting up composting in my building, but it was difficult. I always
ended up having to do all the work,” says Alex, a resident who is here to drop
off food scraps with his young daughter.
“Now all I have to do is come here and not worry. I know it will actually be
used as well, not left in a pile to be forgotten somewhere.”
There are six of these pop-up drop-off points in Besançon, a city in eastern
France not far from the border with Switzerland, available to residents for
three-hour slots in the mornings and evenings during the week.
Once deposited, the organic waste is gathered by a waste collector on an
electric bike and delivered to a farm nine miles away, where it is turned into
compost and eventually used to grow more food.
That circular system is just one cog in the pioneering efforts of France’s
composting capital, which has been fighting for nearly two decades to cut
waste. It doesn’t make financial or ecological sense to throw all our vastly
different waste in the same trash can, the authorities argue, so why do we? As
the world wakes up to the importance of minimizing waste and maximizing use of
our planet’s finite resources, the example of Besançon, which has significantly
cut the waste it produces, could provide lessons."
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
