Pay collectors via a municipal service contract instead of expecting resale to fund it

Mechanism

Treat used-textile collection the same way municipalities already treat other separated waste streams (glass, paper, biowaste): as a service the local authority procures and pays for through a service contract or per-tonne gate fee, rather than a donation scheme expected to fund itself from resale. The operator is paid to collect and divert the tonnage; whatever resale revenue they earn is a bonus that lowers the contract price, not the thing the service lives or dies on.

In practice this usually layers on top of EPR rather than replacing it: producer money (via the eco-organisme) flows to the authority and/or operator, and the authority holds a contract that guarantees the route runs regardless of bale prices. The key shift is who carries the commodity risk — it moves from the fragile social-economy operator to the funded public contract.

Where it fits

This is the answer when the failure is at the level of a specific territory: an intercommunalité whose containers are being pulled because the operator can no longer run the route at a loss. A service contract with a guaranteed collection fee keeps the bins in place through a market downturn, which a self-funding donation model cannot. It pairs naturally with the cost-indexed EPR support (sibling solution) — EPR sets the national funding floor, the municipal contract turns that into a guaranteed local route.

Operating profile

• Collection becomes a budgeted line for the authority, like residual or recycling collection, with predictable cost.
• Continuity through price shocks: the route is contracted, so a bad export year does not strip a whole territory of its drop-off points overnight.
• It can preserve the social-insertion operators by writing social clauses into the procurement, rather than defaulting to the cheapest hauler.

Honest limits

• It shifts cost onto local budgets unless EPR transfers are sufficient — without enough producer money behind it, authorities are funding a producer's waste, which is the wrong incidence.
• It guarantees collection but not valorisation: the diverted textiles still have to go somewhere, so without the upstream quality fix the contract can become a guaranteed route to a saturated sorting centre.
• Procurement can entrench incumbents or, conversely, undercut social operators if social clauses are weak.