Biowaste and 5-stream sorting: obligations for businesses in France

You run a restaurant, a shop or an office in France, and your waste contractor is offering a "7-stream sorting" contract with a separate biowaste bin. Before signing, three questions matter: what the law actually requires of you, what evidence you must be able to produce during an inspection, and how these costs should appear in your accounts.

Quick answer. Since 1 January 2024, every French business that produces biowaste must sort it at source, with no volume threshold (article L541-21-1 of the Environmental Code, the Code de l'environnement). Paper, metal, plastic, glass, wood, mineral fraction, plaster and, since 1 January 2025, textiles must also be sorted at source, with stricter rules above 1,100 litres of waste per week.

This article covers the operational sorting obligation and its accounting consequences. Extended producer responsibility (eco-contributions on the products you place on the market) is a separate regime, explained in our article on EPR and eco-contributions for producers and importers. Sustainability reporting on waste is covered in our guide to ESRS E5: circular economy, resources and waste.

Yes, French businesses have had to sort their biowaste at source since 1 January 2024, whatever the volume produced. Article L541-21-1 of the Environmental Code, introduced by the anti-waste law for a circular economy (the AGEC law of 10 February 2020), extended the obligation to all producers and holders of biowaste by 31 December 2023 at the latest.

The French Ministry for Ecological Transition recalls the phased timetable:

• since 2016: obligation for businesses producing more than 10 tonnes of biowaste per year;
• since 1 January 2023: threshold lowered to 5 tonnes per year;
• since 1 January 2024: all businesses, with no minimum threshold.

What counts as biowaste under French law?#

Article L541-1-1 of the Environmental Code covers non-hazardous biodegradable garden or park waste, and food or kitchen waste from, among others, offices, restaurants, shops, canteens and caterers. In practice: peelings, plate waste, unsold food that is neither donated nor resold, coffee grounds, grass cuttings and hedge trimmings.

Which solutions are accepted?#

The Ministry lists three routes: separate collection (by the local authority or a private contractor), on-site composting, individual or shared, and anaerobic digestion through a contractor.

For restaurants, on-site composting has its limits: waste of animal origin is subject to specific European health rules, and the Ministry advises against placing it in a local composter. In a professional kitchen, separate collection remains the realistic option.

Our view#

The biowaste obligation is often seen as a restaurant issue. Yet it also affects offices: a cafeteria, catered lunches or landscaped grounds are enough. With no threshold, the question is no longer "am I concerned?" but "how do I prove that I sort?".

5-stream sorting is the obligation to sort paper and cardboard, metal, plastic, glass and wood separately at source. It was introduced into the Environmental Code (articles D543-278 et seq.) by decree no. 2016-288 of 10 March 2016, applicable since 1 July 2016.

Decree no. 2021-950 of 16 July 2021 extended the list:

• mineral fraction (concrete, bricks, tiles, ceramics, stones) and plaster were added as soon as the decree came into force, in summer 2021;
• textiles were added from 1 January 2025.

Article D543-281, in force since 1 January 2025, therefore requires eight categories to be sorted at source, from each other and from other waste: paper, metal, plastic, glass, textiles, wood, mineral fraction and plaster. The commercial label "7-stream sorting" does not match the text exactly: depending on the contractor, it means the 5 streams plus mineral fraction and plaster, or plus textiles. Biowaste and used cooking oil fall under separate provisions.

Can some streams share the same bin?#

Yes, under conditions. Article D543-281 allows paper, metal, plastic, glass, textiles, wood and mineral fraction waste to be kept together, for all or some of these streams, provided this does not affect their capacity to be reused, recycled or recovered, and the recovery achieved is comparable to that of separate collection. Plaster is excluded from this exemption.

This is what makes contractors' "mixed recyclables" collection possible. The point that matters in an inspection is not the number of bins, but the contractor's ability to certify that mixed streams are actually sorted and then recovered.

The 1,100 litres per week threshold determines who falls under the stricter 5-stream regime (now 8 categories). Under article D543-280, the regime applies to producers and holders who do not use the public waste management service, and to those who do use it but produce more than 1,100 litres of waste per week, all waste combined.

Three points change the reading:

• The threshold is assessed per site. Several businesses on the same site served by the same waste operator are assessed together: a small tenant in an office building or shopping arcade can be caught by the collective volume.
• The threshold does not apply to biowaste, which must be sorted with no threshold.
• Below the threshold, sorting is still expected. A business served by the local authority follows local sorting rules; service-public.fr points out that every business is subject to source sorting.

According to service-public.fr, three specific rules also apply: a public-facing establishment (ERP, établissement recevant du public) producing more than 1,100 litres per week must also organise separate collection of its visitors' waste; used cooking oil must be sorted from 60 litres per year; paper sorting is not required at sites with 20 people or fewer.

A business must be able to prove that it sorts and that its waste is recovered, using three documents: the collection contract, the contractor's annual certificate and, where required, the chronological waste register.

The annual certificate before 31 March#

Article D543-284 of the Environmental Code requires the facilities that take charge of your waste to issue you, every year before 31 March, a certificate stating in tonnes the nature and quantity of waste in the eight categories transferred the previous year, and its recovery destination. It may be issued electronically.

Ask for it systematically: it proves compliance and provides the tonnages needed for a carbon footprint or a sustainability report.

The chronological waste register#

Article R541-43 of the Environmental Code requires establishments that produce or ship waste to keep a chronological register, retained for at least three years. The order of 31 May 2021 sets its content for outgoing waste: shipment date, waste name and code, quantity, carrier, destination, treatment code.

The order exempts waste handed over to the public waste management service. A business that entrusts part of its waste to a private contractor must therefore keep the register for that part. Many contractors provide an online register extract: check that it is complete.

The underestimated risk#

The most common weak point is not a missing bin but a missing paper trail: an old contract with a contractor that has since changed its name, no archived certificates, invoices with vague descriptions. During an inspection, the business cannot demonstrate a practice that is in fact real. The competent authority may also require an audit by an independent third party (article D543-281), to be carried out within two months.

A business that fails to sort is exposed both to punitive sanctions and to administrative enforcement measures. For failing to sort at source, or sorting improperly, service-public.fr mentions the fine for 4th-class petty offences, i.e. €750 for an individual and €3,750 for a legal entity, and a maximum penalty of 4 years' imprisonment and a €150,000 fine (€750,000 for a legal entity).

On the administrative side, article L541-3 of the Environmental Code allows the competent authority, after an adversarial procedure, to serve formal notice on the business and impose a fine of up to €15,000. If the formal notice is not complied with, it may order a daily penalty of up to €1,500 and a fine of up to €150,000.

Points to watch#

• Administrative and criminal sanctions may be combined, according to service-public.fr.
• Fines and penalties are not deductible from taxable profit (article 39, 2 of the French Tax Code, the CGI).
• Beyond fines, clients, landlords and franchisors increasingly ask for proof of sorting.

Waste collection and sorting costs are operating expenses whose account depends on the nature of the spend: private service, fee, recharged tax or equipment. The French chart of accounts (plan comptable général, PCG) has no dedicated waste account, hence inconsistent practices that are best standardised.

In practice#

• Avoid account 6284. It is sometimes used for waste removal, but the PCG assigns it to staff recruitment costs. The error distorts ratios and makes it harder to extract environmental costs.
• Isolate waste costs in a sub-account. This is the only way to calculate the full cost of sorting, compare quotes and feed a carbon footprint without manual restatement.

For heavier investments, see our article on recording environmental spending as an asset or an expense.

A business can indeed pay twice: through the household waste collection tax (TEOM, taxe d'enlèvement des ordures ménagères), levied with property tax and often recharged by the landlord, then through its private contractor's contract. The two mechanisms follow different logics.

• TEOM is a tax based on the rental value of the premises, regardless of the service actually used. Article 1521 of the French Tax Code nevertheless allows municipal councils, or the competent groupings of municipalities, to exempt certain industrial or commercial premises. According to BOFiP (the official tax guidance), this decision must be taken before 15 October of the year preceding the tax year and is valid for one year only.
• The special fee (redevance spéciale, article L2333-78 of the General Code of Local Authorities) pays for the collection of non-household waste provided to businesses; it is calculated according to the extent of the service, in particular the quantity of waste.

Trade-off#

If a private contractor collects all your waste, ask your municipality or intercommunal authority about a TEOM exemption and reread your lease. If you stay with the public service, a private contract only makes sense for streams the local authority does not handle, often biowaste or large volumes of cardboard. The decision should be based on the full cost, not just the contract price.

Waste sorting feeds directly into sustainability reporting: the tonnages per stream and recovery destinations in the annual certificates are the core data for the ESRS E5 standard and for the "waste" item of a carbon footprint. Archiving your certificates means having this data without any extra collection effort.

The indicators are detailed in our guide to ESRS E5 on the circular economy and waste. For a restaurant, our article on a restaurant's carbon footprint, from energy to waste shows how this data fits into scope 3. And if you are building a broader approach, a 12-month CSR roadmap for SMEs helps place sorting within a coherent action plan.

Common scenario#

A city-centre restaurant, served by the local authority for its residual waste, hands its biowaste and cardboard to a private contractor. It must keep the contract and collection slips, keep the register for the waste handed to the contractor and request the annual certificate for cardboard before 31 March. In the accounts, the contract is isolated as an external charge and the recharged TEOM stays in service charges. Restaurant-specific obligations are covered on our page for restaurant accounting, and the most frequent bookkeeping gaps in our article on common accounting mistakes in restaurants.

To become compliant, map your waste streams, then align contracts, evidence and accounting:

1. List your streams: biowaste, cardboard, glass, plastic, cooking oil, textiles, rubble during works.
2. Estimate weekly volume per site, other occupants included, against the 1,100-litre threshold.
3. Choose the channel: public service, private contractor, on-site composting for green waste.
4. Organise the evidence: contract, annual certificates, register, archiving for at least three years.
5. Set up the accounting: dedicated sub-account, consistent allocation, check of the recharged TEOM.

• Source sorting of biowaste has been mandatory for all French businesses since 1 January 2024, with no volume threshold.
• The 2016 "5-stream sorting" now covers eight categories: paper, metal, plastic, glass, wood, mineral fraction, plaster and, since 2025, textiles.
• The stricter regime applies with private collection or above 1,100 litres of waste per week, assessed per site.
• The contractor's annual certificate, due before 31 March, and the chronological register kept for three years are the core evidence.
• Collection costs are deductible expenses to isolate in a dedicated account; fines are not deductible.