A tightening schedule
- Since 2016: any site producing more than 10 tonnes of biowaste per year must sort and recover it separately (French Environmental Code, art. R. 543-225; decree of 12 July 2011).
- Since January 2023: that threshold drops to 5 tonnes per year (law n° 2020-105 of 10 February 2020 on fighting waste and the circular economy, known as the AGEC law, art. L. 541-21-1 of the Environmental Code).
- Since January 2024: source-sorting biowaste becomes mandatory for everyone, regardless of volume produced.
The laws behind the dates
The schedule above draws on three laws that come up often: the Garot law (law n° 2016-138 of 11 February 2016 on fighting food waste), best known for requiring large retailers to donate unsold food rather than destroy it, but part of the same regulatory push; the EGAlim law (law n° 2018-938 of 30 October 2018), which extends food-waste obligations to collective catering; and the AGEC law (law n° 2020-105 of 10 February 2020), the text that actually sets the 5-tonne threshold in 2023 and the universal obligation in 2024. A GEB dehydrator answers what all three require: sort at the source and reduce the waste to a stable substrate, ready for a recovery channel.
Who's affected
Restaurants, fast food, school cafeterias, hospitals, nursing homes, retail, catering — any professional producing biowaste, with no threshold at all since 2024.
How waste-service financing works
The cost of professional waste collection can fall under several mechanisms depending on the municipality and contract: the TEOM (a property-tax-based charge), the general fee (proportional to the service provided), the special fee (for non-household producers), and the TGAP (a tax on non-recovered waste, which financially penalizes anything still going to landfill or incineration). Cutting your biowaste volume at the source acts directly on these costs.
Learn more about what happens to biowaste once it's sorted: Sorting & recovery.