A campsite with a virtuous economic model in terms of waste

Faced with the climate emergency and our shared responsibility for ecological transition, and keen to keep the financial cost of waste treatment under control, we are doing our utmost to minimise our company’s impact on the environment.

Therefore, since acquiring Le Pech Charmant campsite in 2021, we have been committed to a proactive waste reduction policy.

We have achieved our goal: zero waste to be processedwhen it comes to organic waste !

In 2022, we invested in two 1,000-litre compost bins to collect organic waste from campers and use the compost as fertiliser for our plants. Unfortunately, not everyone played along and the compost bins did not only receive the desired waste, so we had to abandon this solution.

We then acquired two pigs (Soli and Carlo) who, for two years, helped greatly with sorting the food waste that the children happily brought them.

However, as European standards do not allow this practice, we had to abandon this solution as well at the beginning of 2025.

Today, all organic waste is set aside and composted at the back of the campsite for use in planting.

In addition, by raising awareness among our staff (an average team of 25 people in summer) about sorting waste, we have also reduced the volume of final waste by 15% between the first and second years (mainly from the restaurant and snack bar).
However, we quickly realised that all these actions and investments were neither sufficient nor sustainable to achieve our goal and that we needed staff dedicated to sorting.

A new position
 for effective management through careful waste sorting

In July 2023, we created a position (two-month fixed-term contract in 2023 and six-month contract in 2024) and recruited Alain, whose job is to carefully check and re-sort the contents of each recycling bag (yellow bag) and waste bag (black bag) and redirect them to the appropriate containers or compost bins where necessary.
To this end, we have set up his workstation to make it as comfortable as possible (sorting table, arbour, special gloves, etc.).

Thanks to him, in the first year alone, we reduced the volume of final waste by 36% over the entire season.
Both collectively and individually, we involve our holidaymakers in the financial effort through the payment of an eco-contribution.

We have succeeded in our challenge!

The creation of a job for 6 months of the year, the total elimination of organic waste, the reduction of waste collection and treatment costs, control of our budget and the reduction of our environmental impact:

• 2020-2021: 112 yellow bins (sorting) and 161 black bins (final waste)
• 2023-2024: 136 yellow bins (+36%) and 5 black bins (divided by 32)

In 2025, we went even further

We have invested in a baling press (compactor) to enable us to recycle a large proportion of waste and thus further drastically reduce the volume of waste to be collected.

The quality of sorting has increased dramatically, as we separate the following items to produce recyclable bales: cardboard, paper, aluminium, other metals, plastic bottles, plastic trays, wood, soft plastics and bottle caps, which we donate to a cancer charity.

As a result, the volume of yellow bins (unsorted recyclables) has decreased by 65% this year to only 57 bins over the year (and 5 bins of final waste).

To our knowledge, we are currently the only campsite in France to have opted for this solution, which is all the more satisfying as customers can see the efforts made in this area on a daily basis by observing the sorting work carried out by Alain at his workstation..

Water managementat the Pech Charmant campsite

All the showers in the accommodation are equipped with water-saving showerheads and the communal toilets with push buttons set to reduce the flow of water.

Our paths are not tarmacked, allowing for minimal soil sealing and natural temperature regulation, aided by careful forest management.

We have chosen plants for our flowerbeds that do not need water (olive trees, rosemary, heather, palm trees, lavender, yuccas, etc.).

We have installed gutters and eaves troughs and are going to install two 1,000-litre tanks to collect rainwater for watering: the ponies’ watering is now connected to this network and is almost autonomous.

For the 2023 season, we have invested in a system for treating the water against limescale by filtration, which will reduce wear and tear and the premature replacement of equipment…
In addition, the construction of our new sanitary block in 2022 has made it possible to considerably reduce water consumption.