Every year, 174 landfills in France continue to bury 14.2 million tons of waste, with unsorted organic waste—like food scraps and garden clippings—decomposing into methane, a potent greenhouse gas, and leachate, a polluted liquid that can contaminate groundwater. Although a law from 2010 aimed to halve the amount of waste buried by 2025, nearly a third of household waste remains biodegradable and is still being sent to landfills. These sites, which should be phased out, continue to emit methane into the atmosphere. As of the end of 2025, only about half of the French population had access to systems that allow them to separate biodegradable waste, which could otherwise be composted or used to produce biogas. Zero Waste France, an environmental organization, has identified 125 local areas—covering over 4.1 million people—where more than half of household waste is still buried. In 19 of these areas, no local waste prevention plan exists, and in 34 others, there is no proper system for residents to sort biodegradable waste at the source. The 2020 anti-waste law required all households to sort biodegradable waste by the end of 2023, but as of July 2025, only 51.6% of the population had access to a sorting system. This delay means that nearly half of the population still mixes biodegradable waste with other types of waste, continuing the cycle of landfill use. The lack of progress is attributed to several factors, including limited funding, insufficient infrastructure, and low public awareness. The government has set a goal to reduce biodegradable waste in residual waste to 39 kilograms per person per year by 2026, down from 83 kilograms today, and further to 25 kg by 2030 and 15 kg by 2035. However, the gap between these targets and current realities highlights the delays in implementing effective waste sorting systems. Despite a legal requirement since 2012 for all communities to create waste prevention plans, 19 of the 125 most dependent areas still lack such plans, and 34 have no compliant sorting systems in place. While the number of landfills has decreased from 238 in 2014 to 174 in 2022, and the amount of buried waste has dropped from 18.8 million tons in 2018 to 14.2 million tons in 2022, this reduction is largely due to increased incineration, not a decrease in waste production. In fact, the amount of household waste per person has risen from 573 kg in 2013 to 609 kg in 2021. Although laws have set ambitious targets for reducing landfill use, the continued reliance on burial is due to the slow rollout of waste sorting systems. The real challenge ahead is not just to close landfills, but to ensure that they become unnecessary in the first place.