Send eggs! Ex-minister Trillo would say. Because the City Council of the French town of Versailles has proposed an original initiative to its inhabitants: adopt a couple of chickens that will help them recycle the organic waste that is produced daily in their homes. In this way, they try to avoid that said waste ends up in the garbage cans.
According to the organizers of this initiative on their website, each hen is capable of ingesting about 150 kilos of waste per year ; But, in addition, these containers with legs will not only help their owners to recycle, but will also provide them with an average of 200 annual eggs.
The public sector finances part of the cost of the chickens, so that those who buy them will only have to pay 10 euros for the pair of copies. In 2016, the ecological operation is carried out between April and May and is initially limited to 200 households, that is, 400 chickens .
Among the requirements that must be met to take in these chickens is that of being a resident in the area, having an individual garden and installing a chicken coop in it , which must be able to be closed at night to prevent the animals from leaving or from predators, such as foxes, access them.
In addition, families must commit to taking good care of the chickens: that is, to keeping the hen house clean and to providing them with sufficient food and water each day. Most of the food will be waste from the kitchen or gardening, since the birds can eat dry bread, vegetables (such as lettuce leaves), leftover rice, pasta, fish … However, they will have to supplement their diet with cereals, mainly corn, wheat and soybeans.
Some of this initiative emphasize its ecological approach and others the pedagogical value that it can have among children , since most adoptive families have children and they have been provided with information on how to care for these animals.
The agglomeration community of Versailles (a kind of commonwealth that brings together 19 cities, including Versailles), which is behind this initiative, has been betting since 2011 on reducing waste through its Local Waste Reduction Plan , in collaboration with Ademe (French Agency for the Environment and Energy Management).
