Not very glorious figures: more than one in five French people (22 %) declare to throw their waste through the window of their vehicle when they circulate on the road and 37 % admit the same on the public road, the 11th edition of the Annual Survey of the AuthorOute Foundation of Vinci* published on July 31.
“After several years without progress, the jet of waste on the road or the public road marks El Paso,” said the press release. In 2024, there were 27% to admit that they threw their waste through the vehicle window on the road … and even 37% if we return to 2019.
But what do they throw? Organic waste (19%and -4 points compared to 2024), rear (18%, 6 low points), papers or packaging (6%, 5 points) and finally plastic and tapas (6%, -3 points).
More common among young people
And why do this? The study evokes “a sign of impatience or lack of ecological awareness”: one in ten French people admits to getting into the waste immediately in your car, without waiting to find a garbage can, when there is everything on roads or every 10 minutes …
While the risk of fire is logically much higher in the mid -summer, 34% of smokers believe that throwing a megot almost never has serious consequences, 14 points more than the average of the French. However, 28 % of these smokers say they have already been affected directly by forest fires.
More worrying for the future: the practice is more common among young people under 35, who are 28% to declare to launch their waste through the road window, but a figure of 12 points compared to last year.
To stop these practices, 56% of the French are favorable to more repressive measures, and 33% approves an increase in fines. Currently, throwing waste to the street is, in theory, punished with a fine of 135 euros.
*To carry out this survey, Ipsos questioned, from June 6 to 13, 2025, online, 2,256 people who constitute a representative sample of the French population from 16 to 75 years. The representativeness of each sample is guaranteed by the quota method.
Source: BFM TV
