WORLD WORLDWIDE FRANCE News Journal Update - (en) France, OCL CA #335 - Greenly green 335 (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Collection of bio-waste: once a mafia, always a mafia ---- For several
years in large cities, associations have developed specializing in the
composting of plant waste (peeings, coffee grounds, leaves, etc.)
excluding organic waste. animal origin. ---- Composting is "... is a
technique (controlled by humans) for transforming organic matter. It is
more or less inspired by the "cycle of matter" in a natural environment,
where everything that is deposited on the ground (branches, leaves,
fruits, plants, dead animals) is transformed into humus thanks to the
combined actions of a multitude of living beings: bacteria, fungi,
insects, worms and others.»(1)
Communities have clearly seen the economic advantage of no longer
incinerating this plant waste which is made up of more than 70% water.
They therefore supported various specialized associations such as
Eisenia in Lyon.
These associations work with community waste collection services:
installation of collective composters, maintenance, educational
activities, encouragement to reduce waste at source, support for the
public, interventions in collective or worker gardens, etc. Generally,
the Compost produced is used locally: gardens, market gardening... In
short, the dream short circuit. This was the case in the Lyon Metropolis.
Alas, the European circular which requires the sorting of bio-waste
(plant and animal waste) before 2023 has passed this way and the Green
Metropolis has suddenly chosen. In 2022 "Three weeks of operation in the
7th arrondissement were enough to move from "experimentation" to
"generalized deployment" in official language.(1)
And it's heavy: installation of metal compost terminals in the streets,
distribution of small plastic buckets and recycled paper bags,
communications campaign, sorting ambassadors (young people on precarious
contracts responsible for spreading the good word to of the city
dweller)... Everything was implemented successfully.
Eisenia criticized the decision:

energy cost linked to the collection of waste by trucks (in addition to
garbage collection) and transport to industrial composting centers on
the outskirts;
metal bollards imported from Portugal, buckets, made from wonderful
plastics from the "chemistry valley" (Arkema with us), manufacturing,
installation and operation of industrial digesters (electricity and
washing water) in dedicated platforms;
poor quality of industrial composts produced due to the presence of
debris (plastic, metals) which will not be separated from the putrefied
mush leaving the composter (We have other things to do, coco. We have to
keep up the pace!). In view of the scientific feedback on the lasting
pollution of agricultural soils by sludge from wastewater treatment
plants: metabolites of chemical and pharmaceutical products, heavy
metals, pathogenic bacteria and now nano-particles... it is better to be
wary;
arrival on this new buoyant market "new structures, start-up type... as
well as the waste behemoths who have clearly grasped the financial
interest and the bonus green-washing that the biowaste "market" would
represent.»
In Lyon as usual, we find Veolia, Pizzorno, Suez, Paprec... who make
their money collecting and recovering waste (see Alternative Current of
January and February 2021 "Poubellocene: the great recycling of
capitalism").
More generally, faced with the explosion in the quantities of waste
produced by city residents, the response is always more life-saving
technologies, more expensive equipment, more treatments, more recycling
and always the same mafia industrialists set as such. tic-tac-toes on
captive public markets.
Where do we sign?
Change of scenery but no joke with the wonderful world of plastic. There
we find the usual ingredients of capitalist waste management.
Namely a European directive which imposes a massive reduction in plastic
waste on a State which has held back for years on this issue; a plastic
industry which has no reason to diminish what sustains it; a world of
profiteers which gorges itself on eco-taxes and does little to reduce
its polluting activities (61% recycling in 2021 for a European objective
of 77% in 2025) and local authorities which manage collection, treatment
and recycling.
This only concerns a few plastics with high added value: PET, PVC, HDPE.
This brings money to communities but especially to waste thugs. Other
plastics, although collected, are incinerated for district heating.

In 2019 the government decided that the plastic deposit would be done in
agreement with the communities. But, on February 10, 2020, he passed the
"anti-waste law for a circular economy" and, surprise, tried to impose
recycling with the disinterested support of the bottled water lobby
"Boissons Refraîchissantes de France" and from that of supermarkets.
These "insiders" in the market aim to profit from the position of the
industrialists already in place. Capitalism, your ruthless world...
First scam: The term "deposit" implies the reuse of the container as is,
as in the past the 5-star bottles of big red Kiravi, Artaban, Guipamour.
What a shame! The bottles will be recycled, but we don't say that.
Second scam: to lure the depositor, the machine installed in the parking
lot of a hypermarket will pay him a few cents. But "... without it
bringing them anything whatsoever. Their purchase price would in fact
increase by 15 to 20 cents to include the cost of the deposit and its
machines! The consumer taxpayer would thus pay twice, between the
additional cost of the drink and the increase in the household waste
collection tax, while losing the practical aspect of the bottle thrown
in the yellow bin.»(2)
Third scam: This instruction is ridiculous in terms of impact on
pollution: "We spent hours in consultation on this subject of bottles,
even though it is marginal: we are talking about a collection of 100,000
additional tonnes bottles, but plastic waste represents 5 million tonnes
in France" (3).
Fourth scam: Make the naive believe that he is carrying out a virtuous
act and saving the planet through his small eco-citizen gestures while
he directly and indirectly enriches industrialists who have greenwashed
their carbon footprint and captured funds public for the "transition" a
real financial strategy.
Finally, at the end of September, faced with the discontent of local
elected officials (senatorials oblige) and associations, the government
packed up its deposit... For the moment.

Growth relay and plasticization of the world
Fossil and plastic capitalism is no more worried about the widespread
pollution of water, soil, and living organisms that it causes, than it
is worried about the new type of weather report that appeared during the
great negotiation of the future. treaty on plastic pollution held at the
end of May 2023 in Paris. The UN has set a deadline of 2024 to regulate
an omnipresent material but which until now has never interested the
manufacturers of anti-pollution treaties.
According to this bulletin during the negotiations, between 40 and 48 kg
of micro-plastics will fall on the capital of "nylon and polyester,
probably from clothing. And in part, tire residue, scattered
particularly when braking.»(4) And, a delicious technological trap of
the day, electric vehicles, due to the operation of their engines, emit
much more rubber particles when driving and braking.
Everything rolls, everything collapses on the synthetic highway of
capitalist hell.
And it is not the results of the current negotiations in Kenya (November
13-18) that are likely to improve things.
On the one hand we have the "virtuous" (France, Europe, Rwanda, Peru,
etc.) who want a treaty imposing a drastic and rapid reduction in
production (no more plastics in 2040). Given the French strategy for
plastic deposits and the unconditional support of the State and banks
for Total Énergies, we can remain doubtful. But a little green moss
always looks pretty in the landscape before the necessary
accommodations, like what has just happened with the re-authorization of
glyphosate for 10 years by the European Commission, which was a great
moment of French falsehood.
On the other hand, the United States and China are "rather discreet in
these negotiations, they are opposed to global obligations.» (so there
are not only tensions between them?) and "are relying more on national
plans, and on improving collection and recycling". It is in our interest
to believe in their good will because, if in 60 years the world
population has doubled, plastic consumption has increased forty-fold.
It's difficult to be more plastic friendly than them with their
non-binding solutions!
For the trifecta of oil producers, Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia and
that's it,

For what?

The OECD and the greedy industrialists in the sector have forecast a
tripling of production from 460 million tonnes in 2022 to 1.2 billion
tonnes by 2060, including 1 billion of waste, recycled at a maximum of
10%. .
Faced with the expected drop in sales of gasoline and automobile diesel
due to the electrification of the automobile fleet, the plasticization
of bodies, of cells of the heavens as an abyss is perceived by them (and
the other pumpers) as the buoy of rescue on November 30 2023 in Dubai
promises to be a great time.
A very big moment indeed, because the appointment of Sultan Al Jaber as
president triggered a not very discreet joy among the chemical and oil
multinationals, the sovereign funds and the national oil companies
(China, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Emirates, Qatar, Venezuela, Brazil...)
The billionaire, general director of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company
(ADNOC) took the pipeline by the horns: "Of course, we must avoid
excesses, but it is unthinkable that the limitation of emissions will be
to the detriment of economic growth... This for a simple reason: it is
the virtuous circle of green growth which leads to the innovations we
need to solve the overall equation.»(6)
The noble climate gravedigger, at the opening of the UN climate
conference in Riyadh, courageously defended "... the reduction of
emissions and not of fossil fuels, thus leaving the door wide open to
the development of fossil fuels. The objective according to him is to
"rely on existing, new and emerging technologies", and has put down the
environmentalist hydra by calling for "separating facts from fiction,
reality from fantasies" the "facts" being the impossibility of "...
unplugging today's energy system before building tomorrow's system." It
is simply neither practical nor possible."(7)

EOR is gold
We understand it well, the salvation of oiled humanity will come from
"existing, new and emerging technologies"? But what are we talking about
here?
A marvel: carbon capture and sequestration or CCS and its little sister
which includes its "valorization" CCUS.
The idea is to recover the CO2 emitted by industry, liquefy it to
transport it by carbon pipelines and either store it in natural
underground reservoirs (Generally, these are old oil or coal subsoils).
, the subsoil of the oceans...), or to export it.
We understand that we want to store it but without any guarantee that
there will be no leaks, because the technology is, let's say it, random.
The 80,000 tons of methane that leaked from the Aliso Canyon storage
facility in California are a reminder that gases are "a child of Bohemia
that has never, ever known law."
But why export it as planned by the EUR1.7 billion "GoCo2" project in
the Pays de la Loire, which will recover "... pollution from four large
emitters... transported via a pipeline... to the port of St Nazaire
where it will then be liquefied before being exported. (8)»?
To be stored, far, far away like our other waste swept under the carpet?
Or rather to power old tanker technology, 50 years old: "enhanced oil
recovery" or EOR?
By injecting CO2 into oil deposits, the pressure is increased and more
oil is extracted. Thus, "80 to 90% of carbon dioxide is used... to
exploit more oil, not to save the planet.»
The EOR has therefore become the new key for oil companies wishing to
obtain public bank guarantees for new drilling abroad. The carbon credit
market is all doped up with it: banks, pension funds and insurers are
pounced on this waste which allows speculation, opens the right to tax
credits ($85 per tonne in the USA) and allows us to continue to extract
ever more of oil with a good conscience. And, to hope to better
camouflage future accidents: a leak of carbon dioxide into the ocean is
colorless, odorless and tasteless, unlike an oil slick.
CCS therefore opens the way "towards a thoughtful energy transition"
according to the CEO of EXXON. And it's not Emir Jaber who will
contradict him. No more than the techno-solutionists allied with
manufacturers; and experts from the IPCC and the International Energy
Agency converted to CCS who should soon have a field day in Dubai.
We can only wish them a happy end of the year and above all, health,
prosperity and the success of their projects... at the expense of the
planet and its inhabitants. Unless Father Lapurge, returning from the
abyss of the Revolution, decides to plasticize the planet's plasticizers?

Rook and Eugene the Jeep

Notes
1 - Collecting bio-waste via voluntary drop-off points, a bad idea?
Eisenia Association. 2022
2 - Deposit for plastic bottles. Local authorities are standing up
against this absurdity. E. Chesnais. What to choose? 01/03/2023
3 - Deposit for plastic bottles: the government's hesitation. A. Feitz.
Les Échos, 06/09/2023
4 - A rain of microplastic of 40 kg is expected in Paris, according to
this new kind of weather forecast. GEO with AFP, 05/26/2023. See also CA
of June 2023 for pollution by clothing.
5 - Resumption of international negotiations for a treaty against
plastic pollution. Sandy Dauphin. Chronicle of Planète Verte, France
Inter newspaper, 11/17/2023
6 - Grandstand. Ahmed al Jaber, president of COP 28: "Economy and
climate are not incompatible". Ahmed al Jaber. The Sunday Journal,
03/18/2023
7- COP28. The world cannot "unplug" the current energy system, according
to Sultan al-Jaber. West France, 08/10/2023.
8 - Carbon sequestration: a condition of survival for oil tankers. And
Putting carbon under the rug: sequestration and its promises. A. Costa.
La Brèche n°5, November 2023

http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article4028
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca