Waste Sorting Guide
Which bin does it go in?
Bénac is covered by SMECTOM du Plantaurel, whose official sorting guide is the French Mémo Tri 2026, a colour-coded lookup table listing the items people most often get wrong. These pages are an English version of it, reorganised by destination: one page per bin, container or drop-off, each saying what goes in, what does not, and where the rejects go instead.
For when the bins go out and the access card, see Waste & Recycling Collection.
The colours here are our lids, not the mémo's legend
The Mémo Tri’s own legend uses green for glass and blue for paper. At the chateau the lids are different, and these pages follow the lids you will actually see:
- 🟡 Yellow lid — packaging and recyclables
- 🟢 Green lid — general waste (SMECTOM’s documents call this the bac gris)
- 🔵 Blue lid — glass
- 🟤 Compost bin
Everything else goes off-site. If you cross-reference the French mémo, read the words, not the colours.
The nine destinations
| Destination | French | Where | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🟡 | Yellow Bin — Recyclables | Emballages recyclables | Bin at home, kerbside pickup |
| 🟢 | Green Bin — General Waste | Ordures ménagères | Bin at home, kerbside pickup |
| 🔵 | Blue Bin — Glass | Verre | Bin at home |
| 🟤 | Compost | Composteur | Compost bin at home |
| 🔴 | Déchèterie — Recycling Centre | Déchèterie | Drive there, access card needed |
| 🟣 | Take It Back — Shops & Pharmacies | Points de collecte | Shop, pharmacy or charity |
| ⚪ | Paper Drop-off | Papier | Paper container at the collection point |
| 🩷 | Textile Bank | Borne textile | Textile bank |
| ♻️ | Second Life — Reuse | Réutilisation | Keep it, refill it, pass it on |
Quick decision
Work down the list and stop at the first match.
- Still usable? Keep it, refill it or give it away — Second Life.
- Clothes, shoes or linen? Even worn out — Textile Bank.
- Did it grow? Peelings, scraps, coffee filters, eggshells — Compost.
- Glass bottle, jar or flacon? Lid off — Blue Bin. Drinking glasses and ceramics are not packaging glass.
- Paper you read? Newspapers, magazines, notebooks, post — Paper Drop-off.
- Battery, bulb, medicine, cartridge, e-cigarette? Back to the shop or pharmacy — Take It Back.
- Chemical, oily, electrical, bulky or building waste? Large cardboard too — Déchèterie.
- Is it packaging? Any material, emptied, loose — Yellow Bin.
- None of the above — Green Bin. Bagged and tied.
The single biggest mistake
Packaging in the green bin. Cans, foil, plastic bottles, pots, trays, film, bags, cartons and small cardboard all belong in the yellow bin, whatever they are made of. Empty them; there is no need to rinse.
Printable sheets
Each destination has a one-page A4 sheet, designed to be stuck up next to the bins. Print at 100 % scale, single sided.
- All nine sheets (PDF)
- Individually: yellow bin · green bin · glass · compost · déchèterie · take it back · paper · textile · reuse
Sources and provenance
- SMECTOM Mémo Tri 2026 — local copy (PDF, French), from smectom.fr. All 119 items in the mémo appear on these pages, each on the page for its destination.
- Items marked † are not in the mémo. They are the general French sorting rule for that stream, added because the mémo only lists items people get wrong, so small streams (paper has a single entry) would otherwise look empty.
- The handling rules at the foot of each page are the national sorting instructions, also not from the mémo.
- The French names kept on these pages — déchèterie, bac jaune, borne textile and the SMECTOM letter codes A / P / M / ES — are the words you will see on local signage.
See also Supplies & Shopping for the Ressourcerie de Foix, a good first stop before throwing anything usable away.