This Tuesday at noon, the Nice Côte d’Azur Metropolis signed a five-year contract with Citeo, a key player in recycling in France. The objective? To enhance selective sorting and reduce waste production.
This Tuesday at noon, on the Promenade du Paillon, Pierre-Paul Léonelli, Deputy Mayor of Nice in charge of Cleanliness, Collection, Green Spaces, and Vice-President of the Nice Côte d’Azur Metropolis, and Jean Hornain, CEO of Citeo, formalized the signing of a support contract for selective sorting.
The amount committed? 16.5 million euros over five years, from 2025 to 2029. This new framework now unifies the support systems for paper and packaging, in order to simplify management for local authorities and enhance overall efficiency.
“This partnership is the culmination of a historic relationship between the Metropolis and Citeo”, underlines Jean Hornain. A relationship of trust that is built to last in order to structure recycling on a local scale.
First, reduce waste and then sort it
“The primary goal is to reduce waste. Sorting comes afterwards”, emphasizes Pierre-Paul Léonelli. A clear, quantified, and assumed vision: in the Alpes-Maritimes, household waste decreased by 14% in 2024. A performance that the official did not fail to acknowledge. “I am delighted with these results. It proves that efforts pay off and that residents are playing their part.”
This contract with Citeo aims to continue this momentum, by strengthening sorting tools, but also by keeping the primary challenge in mind: to produce less waste upstream.
A model that is being reinforced
In 2024 already, Citeo allocated 3.3 million euros to the Metropolis to support recycling initiatives. The new contract goes much further. It structures a smoother, more coherent, and above all more ambitious model.
No more scattered approaches: a single framework for all types of packaging and paper, clarified funding, and more effective governance.
Plastic, the Achilles’ heel
Not everything is won yet. “There is still work to be done, especially regarding the issue of plastic”, acknowledges Pierre-Paul Léonelli. This material, ubiquitous and difficult to recycle, remains one of the major challenges in the sector. The new contract specifically foresees targeted actions to improve the sorting and recovery of these specific wastes.
But beyond the yellow bins, it is a whole philosophy that local authorities want to convey: “Why do we sort? Not just to keep things clean, but especially to reduce our footprint.”
At a time when the UNOC is taking place in Nice, Léonelli recalls a major geographical issue: “Here, our waste can end up in the Mediterranean. We must consider their management with our Mare Nostrum in mind.”
