Automobile: On the road to vacation, one in five French people still throws their trash out the window

An apple core, an empty cup, a cigarette butt casually thrown away... On the asphalt of the holidays, ecological reflexes sometimes take a break.

According to the latest summer survey by the Vinci Autoroutes Foundation, conducted with Ipsos, one in five motorists admits to throwing their rubbish out of their car window .

A practice that is slightly down compared to the previous year, but which continues to cause serious concern among road users.

This statistic alone illustrates the extent of this culpable laxity, even though climate and environmental warnings have never been so pressing.

Smoking: still an all too common practice

Among the most frequently thrown away waste, cigarette butts occupy a prominent place.

Nearly one in five smokers (18%) admit to throwing their cigarette butts out the window . However, these actions, often trivialized, have major environmental consequences.

Among them, only 55% consider the risk of fire to be extremely high, compared to 81% of the population as a whole.

Even more worrying: 34% believe that throwing away a cigarette butt almost never has serious consequences, 14 points more than the average French person.

However, in summer, the risk of fire linked to a poorly extinguished cigarette butt is real.

On vacation, I forget everything...even sorting ?

As soon as holidaymakers leave their homes, the practice of sorting waste is in sharp decline.

Only 87% of French people say they regularly sort their waste at their holiday destination and 77% do so when travelling on the motorway.

Yet 99% of rest areas are now equipped with selective sorting devices. Visible sorting terminals in rest areas therefore exist but are struggling to curb holiday habits.

The main justification given for not sorting waste on the motorway remains, for almost half of French people, the desire to go as quickly as possible by using the nearest bin.

Quick gestures that leave lasting traces

These are cans, packaging, paper, but above all cigarette butts, which accumulate on the verges, fragment over time and contaminate the soil.

These residues often end up in waterways or groundwater, having a lasting impact on biodiversity.

Added to this is the human cost: motorway cleaning staff are exposed to considerable risks, working at the side of the road.