anger at a hazardous waste burial

The dizzying industrial fireplaces and the gaping holes of an old limestone career form the reliefs of this dish country. In Hersin-Coupigny, lately, anger has rumbled. “For our children, not the storage of hazardous waste in our town,” we read on a sign planted in front of the entrance to a brick house in the village.

At the end of the long path, a wood masks the white cavities of the abandoned career. It is here that Sarpi, a subsidiary of Veolia and owner of a part of the land, wishes in 2026 to set up an installation of burial of hazardous waste, an “ISDD”, in the jargon.

Classified seveso high threshold -a category reserved for factories where substances that can be dangerous for humans and the environment are handled -it would be the fourteenth in France. The place is not chosen at random, it already houses a harmless residue storage site partly bought by Veolia.

“We want to poison ourselves even more. We are 300 meters from the dwellings and 700 meters from a school, “protests Jean-Luc Coquery, president of the association against the installation of hazardous waste in Hersin (Aciddh), formed last fall. At the very moment when the file arrived on the prefect’s office, the only decision -maker.

Petition and demonstrations

Will the senior official be attentive to the 11,000 signatures collected, hundreds of demonstrators gathered in early February in the streets of the town or elected officials of all stripes standing against the project? Even the Minister of Ecological Transition, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, deputy in the second district of the department and domiciled about fifteen kilometers away when she is not in Paris, is anything but excited.

Veolia has been betting on the absence of storage centers in Hauts-de-France for more than three decades. In this very industrialized region, a million tonnes of ultimate waste, that is to say at the end of treatment, are produced each year*, part of which is buried in the Ile-de-France, Norman, Occitans and Germany basements. Dangerous residues that nobody wants at home but which must be taken care of. Added to this are the toxic ashes resulting from the incineration of our household waste, which must be buried.

A Mille-feuille de residues

In the hierarchy of treatments – reuse, recycling, energy valuation -, burial appears as the last option, pending a technological advanced miraculous. The problem is the same as that of nuclear waste -the landfill site of Bure (Meuse) has aroused controversy for over twenty -five years.

“We cannot do otherwise,” concedes Florian Lacombe, study manager at the Regional Waste Observatory in Île-de-France. And again, a big leap took place in the 1990s, when the European Union pressed its members to stop throwing hazardous waste in municipal discharges. From now on, the scraps are buried several hundred meters away, in a cavity with the walls covered with a thick layer of clay, itself protected by an ultra-resistant tarpaulin.

The residues are stored in the manner of a mille -feuille: a layer of waste, a layer of substrate -of the earth, for example -, then a new layer of waste. “To prevent dust or toxic liquids from polluting the soil or groundwater, environmental standards are very demanding,” says Florian Lacombe.

Legal battle in sight

If no study demonstrates for the time being of health risk, the inhabitants are far from reassured and cry out for public health scandal. In fact, other ISDDs must see the light of day in the years to come in France because nothing indicates that our production of waste will slow down. Unless sobriety ends up convincing everyone.

“We are aware of the problem, the goal is not to move the site to the neighbors, but we must be attentive to the inhabitants,” insists Jean-Luc Coquery. The surrounding town halls seized a lawyer – the same one who had the state condemned in the lead pollution of residents, a few kilometers away. “We will go very far … to Europe if necessary”, let go, without more details, the councilor of Hersin-Coupigny, Jean-Marie Caramiaux (DVG). A potential legal battle is emerging on the horizon.

* Source: Hauts-de-France prefecture, 2019.