At a time when the reduction and recyclability of household packaging, including cosmetics, have become compulsory, their implementation remains a challenge for companies. Between regulatory requirements and the reality of sorting centres, Marion Halby, Léko’s Head of Institutional Affairs, and Nicolas Pont, Véolia’s Ecodesign and Recycling Director, took stock of the subject during the JEST 2002 organised by Cosmed in September.
Léko is an French eco-organisation that is part of an extended producer channel for household packaging set up in 1992 on the basis of the “polluter pays” principle. In concrete terms: from the moment a piece of packaging is placed on the market, the person who places it on the market contributes financially to its end-of-life (the cost of collection, recycling and processing), in a mutualised manner, by paying a contribution to an eco-organisation, which is then responsible for organising the sector and redistributing financial support to the local authorities, which, for the most part, organise the collection and recycling.
Léko has been approved by the State since 2017. Its founder, the Reclay group, is approved in five countries: Germany, France, Austria, Slovakia and Canada.
Today, 830 million euros are collected annually by Léko from various sectors, including the cosmetics industry. Glass represents 49%, plastic 23%, paper and cardboard 22%… Recycling targets have been set for the past ten years at 75%, and have still not been reached since they were only 72% in 2021.
Léko’s objective is therefore to contribute to reaching the target of 75% of packaging recycled in France. To achieve this, the eco-organisation is working on …