"All living organisms are contaminated" by microplastics: a Var farmer breaks the silence
A smashed Coca-Cola can, pieces of synthetic fibers, plastic waste "in all the colors of the rainbow, green, yellow, red," some measuring a good centimeter, others more than five centimeters.
In Cabasse, in the central Var region, Roselyne Gavoty is furious: the winemaker at this renowned Côtes de Provence estate found macro- and microplastics in commercially available compost. She had purchased it in 2021 to burn as a means of combating frost. This technique, common in agriculture, allows the vines to be smoked, creating an artificial cloud to protect the buds from low temperatures.
"I had stored 10 tons of this compost in a shed, which I thought was organic. In 2024, with the cold snaps and the risk of spring frosts, I formed mounds around a strategic plot to direct the smoke. I didn't light it, thank God, it didn't freeze! But when I was about to remove it, I came across these plastics, the mound was full of them," says the winemaker, still in shock.
Clochemerle in CabasseWith an invoice in hand – a copy of which we have – she contacted the Cœur du Var community of communes to inquire about the NFU 44-095 standard, the reference that Valéor, a subsidiary of Pizzorno environnement, which manages the green waste recovery platform at the Biopôle de la Gagère in Cabasse, allegedly sold her. The waste recovery department of the Cœur du Var ecosite confirmed to her in an email that "a certain percentage of inert waste (plastics) is permitted in the compost" sold under this reference.
A world opens up beneath Roselyne Gavoty's feet: there are actually two types of compost for agriculture: the one referenced under the Afnor NF U44-095 standard, made from sewage sludge, and the NFU 44-051, made from biowaste (green waste and food waste with or without plastic packaging). Both are subject to the same regulatory pollutant thresholds: per kilo of compost, the authorized limit values are 11 grams of plastic and 20 grams of metal and glass. This is enough to anger the winemaker. " I'm organic, fortunately my intention was not to spread it to fertilize my soil, but to burn this mound. What scandalizes me is to call something that contains polluting plastics compost, it's a scam, these are still products sold with the blessing of the public authorities," says Roselyne Gavoty who decided to break the omerta. Without knowing the ministerial calendar...
Friday, May 23, this pollution was brought to light during the public restitution of the European EscoPlastiques expertise, commissioned by the Ministries of Agriculture, the Environment and Ademe. Conducted by the CNRS (National Center for Scientific Research) and INRAE (National Institute for Agricultural, Food and Environmental Research), this unprecedented work takes stock of scientific knowledge on the use of plastics in agriculture and food.
For two and a half years, a committee of 30 European experts was mobilized to explore more than 4,500 international scientific publications on these materials, which are in direct contact with our soils, food, crops, and livestock. According to the study's authors, on a global scale, the contamination of agricultural soils by microplastics, estimated at 1,000 particles per kilo in the first meter of depth, exceeds in tonnage, by up to three to six times, that of the oceans.
In France, agricultural soils are estimated to contain 244 kg of microplastics per hectare. European experts have stressed the need to "place these unprecedented data within a land-ocean continuum" as the third United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC) opens in Nice on Monday. "Plastics have the ability to fragment, degrade and therefore disperse. It's a pollution without borders; these particles are found in the most remote soils in the world, such as deserts, with 100 microplastics per kilo of soil," warns Bruno Tassin, who participated in the collective study.
Food packaging, the biggest polluterHow do these particles end up in our agricultural soils? Here again, experts have scrutinized the upstream and downstream aspects of the sector, from production to plastic waste management and recycling methods. According to existing data, 20% of the plastics consumed in France are intended for the agricultural (9%) and food (91%) sectors, mainly for food and beverage packaging. Farmers use them to preserve fodder in livestock systems (73%) and, to a lesser extent (9%), for horticultural crops: mulches, greenhouse tunnels, etc.
"There are many sources of soil contamination: atmospheric deposition, plastic coating of agrochemical inputs, wear and tear on plastic infrastructure used in agriculture, irrigation using water contaminated by wastewater, spreading of contaminated organic waste such as digestate from methanization, sludge from sewage treatment plants and compost," lists Bruno Tassin.
This is where our winemaker's problem resurfaces. How did the plastics, present in large quantities in the Cabasse vineyards, end up in the incriminated compost? "Not all composts are equal, it depends on when we sort: upstream, or at the end of the chain when the biowaste is screened and then passed through deconditioners which burst the packaging, hence the presence of microplastics," explains Cédric Davoine, president of Alchimistes Côte d'Azur. For years, the socially useful solidarity enterprise has been advocating for a lowering of the inert thresholds allowed in compost, via the "common base" decree. "If it were adopted, it would make it possible to reduce the total plastics, glass and metals to 5 grams per kilo, compared to 31 grams today," hopes Cédric Davoine.
Response, from the remote forests of central Var, from Cabasse winemaker Roselyne Gavoty: "It's a scandal for the earth: you put compost on the ground, so you find it in the soil... And you get it back! If Valéor reacts and comes to collect it, I'll give it to them, for free!"
Pizzorno sidesteps the issue of plasticsBy coincidence, Valéor, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Draguignan-based Pizzorno group, which we contacted by phone, has just been positively audited by Ecocert (a certification body) for its NFU 44-051-certified compost, making it suitable for use in organic farming. The plastics found at Roselyne Gavoty's, in the compost invoiced by this company, represent a stone in the garden of Hervé Antonsanti, director of recovery and treatment activities for Pizzorno.
"I don't want to talk about a specific case from 2021, where investigators need to be mobilized. We exclusively market NFU 44-051 compost, mainly from green waste. If we supplied compost to this winegrower, it underwent a manufacturing process, control and physicochemical analyses to verify its quality in accordance with the standard," he says. Could there have been embezzlement? Or the sale of substandard compost? In the Cabasse sector, anonymous sources confirm that Valéor sold two different references. So we asked Hervé Antonsanti the question: "We have occasionally produced, on a very marginal scale, shredded green waste, which we only grind and screen before selling as is. This is allowed and regulated, but it is not compost! Some customers have bought it and been satisfied, others not. But for several years, we have stopped this production ," ventures the director.
A stone's throw away, the Cabasse winemaker is not giving up: "Valéor is avoiding the issue of plastics, the standard is a false problem, the scandal is the presence of these polluting materials in compost made from organic matter. This organization is supposed to be driven by environmental friendliness, since it manages waste."
In 2021, Valéor sold 18,000 tonnes of NFU 44-051 compost, mainly to farmers. "No one has ever come forward to criticize the fact that there are too many impurities. Let the customer call us, show us and prove that we are indeed the producers of the compost in question, and we will find a solution," the director dismisses. Roseline Gavoty, in fact, has the proof. She kept the invoice on Valéor's letterhead. The wording reads "Cabasse - sale of compost."
"All living organisms are contaminated"
Their low cost, lightness, and robustness have favored their intensive use in food and agriculture since the 1950s. But plastics, and the 16,000 chemical substances they contain, do not only affect human health. "These micro and nanoplastics represent a danger for fauna and flora. They will act like a veritable raft that will travel in the food chain, circulating in all environmental compartments: water, air, land," explains Muriel Mercier-Bonin, INRAE scientific pilot and deputy director of the Food Toxicology Unit in Toulouse. Acting like a "Trojan horse," these particles carry toxic substances, such as metals or chemical pollutants, like phthalates and Bisphenol A, recognized as endocrine disruptors. They are regulated at the European level, but present in our soils. "With this study, we have made visible what is invisible," warns the specialist.
The EscoPlastiques expertise will be made public before the summer (available at https://esco-plastiques-agri-alim.colloque.inrae.fr/). "We can't put this data in a cupboard. What we already know is that the public authorities will use it to define the French position in future negotiations on the global treaty to end plastic pollution," says Guy Richard, director of collective expertise at INRAE.
The next session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-5.2) will be held from 5 to 14 August in Geneva.
Var-Matin
