©Unsplash
Imagine going to pick mushrooms in the forest and suddenly sinking into a pit filled with plastic. In 2008, that's what happened to a woman who was crossing land belonging to Nestlé Waters near Vittel, in eastern France.
This chance discovery triggered a long battle which, almost twenty years later, has brought the Swiss mineral water giant before a criminal court.
Since March 23, 2026, Nestlé Waters Supply Est - the group's French subsidiary - has been on trial before the Nancy judicial court. The charges are heavy: illegal waste management, abandonment of polluting substances, substantial damage to the environment and, above all, discharge of noxious substances into groundwater with effects on human health, flora and fauna.
The investigation, which lasted three years and is recorded in a file of over 2,000 pages, brought to light a reality that many people in the Vosges region knew about, but about which, according to the inhabitants themselves, a 'true omerta' reigned.
On the more than 3,000 hectares of Nestlé-owned land in the watershed that supplies the Vittel, Contrex and Hépar springs, the inspectors identified four main sites of illegal dumping: Saint-Ouen-lès-Parey, They-sous-Montfort, Contrexéville and Crainvilliers. In all, 470,000 cubic meters of waste, a mixture of plastic, glass and rubble, were involved.
On the They-sous-Montfort site alone, there was the equivalent of 27 Olympic-sized swimming pools of garbage: 100,100 cubic metres, including 42,400 of plastic alone. Tall trees had now grown over these piles of garbage, but the stability of the soil was only apparent, so much so that walking on it risked suddenly sinking into a pit filled with plastic.
The most alarming finding was microplastic pollution in the water. The independent laboratories commissioned by the investigators found levels of great concern: around the They-sous-Montfort landfill, concentrations of microplastics in a well were found to be almost 7,000 times higher than normal. But it was the Nancy public prosecutor's office that used the harshest words, referring to pollution of an "immeasurable scale", with "exorbitant" levels in the Hépar and Contrex springs: up to 1.3 million times higher than those found in the Seine.
The conclusions of the French Biodiversity Office also leave little room for doubt: such high concentrations of microplastics in water "can only have deleterious effects" on water resources, fauna, flora and human health.
What emerges from the investigation is a story of omissions, pressure and collusion. Nestlé claims that the dumps date back to before 1992, when it bought the local brands, at a time when waste legislation was virtually non-existent. But the authorities discovered that the company had been aware of these deposits since at least 2015, and that it wasn't until 2021 - under the pressure of media attention - that it began the process of bringing them into compliance.
In the meantime, those who tried to denounce the situation have paid dearly. A farmer who had taken journalists to the landfill sites was sued by Nestlé for trespassing. A retired doctor, founder of the Eau 88 collective, had to be placed under police protection after an attempt to set fire to his home was organized in a WhatsApp conversation.
Civil parties include France Nature Environnement, the Ligue pour la protection des oiseaux (Oiseaux Nature), the Association pour la protection des vallées and UFC-Que Choisir. The mayor of Saint-Ouen-lès-Parey - the only commune in the area which, according to the investigation, receives no taxes or subsidies from Nestlé - has also lodged a complaint on behalf of his municipality.
The Swiss group disputes the accusations. On the opening day of the trial, its lawyers had already obtained the cancellation of certain searches on procedural grounds. The company's communication asserts that 7 of the 9 identified sites have already been cleaned up and returned to their natural state, and calls into question the reliability of the microplastic analyses, claiming that the samples could have been contaminated during sampling and storage.
A Nestlé spokesman said: "Today, most of the sites have already been cleaned up by Nestlé Waters, and we're waiting for feedback from the environmental authorities to clarify the best management option for the remaining sites. No waste dumping has been carried out by Nestlé Waters between 2021 and 2024."
(©GreenMe.it 2026 / Managing Editor : Selma Keshkire - The Press Junction / Picture : ©Unsplash)