Sea waste is destroying the natural environment of a small quaint town in France, just 25 kilometres away from the centre of Paris.

17 June 2018 0 By 2worlds


Imagine the size of 7 football pitches, now imagine 5000 tonnes of waste spread across an area in Paris for all to see. That’s what @2worlds came across today, on the 6th of April having found an article about the wasteland and as we were only a stone throw away from it, we decided to go and assess the damage with our own eyes.

When we got to the city of Carrieres-Sous-Poissy, we could not find the illegal dump straight away, my friend and I asked residents to find our way. Out of curiosity I asked them what the site was like and the response was,

‘’Ooh the sea waste you just have to go through these woods and you won’t be able to miss it’’ none of them seemed particularly shocked in fact they looked used to the problem.

Sea waste, I asked myself could it possibly be that bad? We walked probably 10 minutes until we found it. The huge illegal mess that formed from a lack of recycling amongst businesses combined with the uncaring attitude of the city. Just to give you an idea of exactly what I was looking at I was surrounded by: blockworks, toilets, sinks, glass from windows, ceiling tiles containing asbestos, tyres, car debris. We literally stumbled across everything and anything you could possibly imagine, well almost… and this went on for miles around. Many mountains of rubbish in the open air pollute the soil and affect the wildlife.

I got talking to one of the residents Jose who was accompanied by his son and he informed me that this wasteland consisted of:

‘’25 acres of rubbish have accumulated over many years’’.

But how did we get there?

I think that what shocked us the most during the afternoon, was the fact that all of this was happening in front of an actual recycling centre. After researching the topic, I found that most of the waste came from illegal dumping from construction companies. Trucks from construction sites arrive to dump their debris from 2 o’clock until 10 at night this activity is nonstop on most days. Also contributing to the problem is the disposal of additional with household’s waste left by travelling communities. When I think about it that is a lot of activity to go unnoticed or without intervention so what exactly is going wrong.

After seeing a rabbit run with a piece of roofing in its mouth, the gravity of the situation suddenly dawned on me.

The residents put a petition together, to ask the mayor to recover the space. After evaluating the cost of the damages an estimate of 1million euros was drawn up. Having realised the expense required for such a large operation, the mayor realised that the costs are way above its financial resources that the city has access to for a project such as this. I believe that all those that contributed to the development of this this tragedy should be a part of the recovery process, taking accountability through schemes and voluntary assistance until the issue of this waste is resolved. However, retracing all the sources of waste would entail an extra cost. A charge that the municipality seems to not want to pay. So regardless of the alternative policies and processes that can be considered for now it appears that the financial implications out weigh the issues that are connected to this awful site.

Until then it’s seems like there is no real solution yet to the illegal dump of Carrieres-Sous-Poissy…