Hi, A house down the road from me in Kerdrain France has over a thousand portable gas bottle of different sizes in the garden and garage. Can anyone tell me if this is legal or not and who do I contact to get it sorted out. There is a smell of gas in the area and the guy whom owns the place empties the bottles outside then cuts them up? Thanks Rob
Talk to your Mairie.
… or offer him a cigarette!
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Yes the Mairie or failing that your local firestation. These gas bottles are now very hard for ordinary folks to dispose of, I tried everywhere and the only place back in Brittany was a specialist scrap metal plant. Déchetteries don’t take empty containers nor do filling stations where they sell Butagaz etc. In the end I left them in the barn next to the house when I moved for the new owners to sort out. If this is a legit business then I don’t think you have much leeway to complain and the proprietor would not risk his life cutting up bottles unless its safe to do so and you always get a proportion of gas left in a bottle
Go and have a friendly gossipy chat to him? Hello, I’m your neighbour XX nice to meet you. Never knew gas bottle could be cut up, is there a use for them? Etc etc
Then speak to the marie if it seems off.
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We get rid of the odd one or two old metal empty ones by leaving them alongside the cages of the filled ones in our local supermarket. 9pm in the evening there’s no one around and they are never left there - so the delivery lorries must take them.
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This may or may not be correct as it comes from the AI Mode of Google:
“In France, cutting up, modifying, or repurposing empty butane or propane gas cylinders is illegal and extremely dangerous. Gas bottles remain the legal property of the brand or distributor under a mandatory deposit system (consigne ), and destroying or altering them breaches environmental waste codes and safety regulations regarding hazardous pressurized equipment”
Source: France Gaz Liquide.
Given that you say this practice is going on at a house, with bottles stored in the garden and garage, well . . . .
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I would forget the Mairie, they will be closing for the holidays anyway, straight to the Gendarmes!
I spoke to our local supermarket as I had a few large ones when we bought our house and they said it was fine to leave them with them.
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The supermarket who sells the brand is legally required to take back the empties .. Thats what our local Council in Bretagne say . If you remember you had to pay deposit of ..I think 20 euro to have the bottleI still have a few of those receipts from 20 years ago. . So in theory with the receipt they should be refunding the 20 .. So I will be bloody minded on this and if and when I have to sell..I will drive into he Supermarket here and up to the cages and just leave the empties. .. But only of their brands …
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I’ve still got half a dozen or so out side from the long ago days when we were on gas, I enquired at the supermarket but they wouldn’t refund the deposit.
I did think of filling them with water but unscrewing the top might cause a spark.
Good idea @SuePJ of simply dumping them when the place is shut. 
That’s all well and good but most have cameras in the car parks especially around gas storage racks and all they need is facial recognition which would be on the computers via your Carte de Sèjour and/or your vehicle reg plate. Super U would not take any empties I had without the paperwork but after 32 years since the first one, no longer kept
So what? ..they are legally required to accept the bottles of the brands they sell . The bottles are coloured coded by distributor. Now if you bring a different brand they might get away with a dumping charge ….. It is only one of the many recycling laws in force.
Well, I am going there today for my weekly shop so I will check the brands on display, but the it has changed hands from Auchan to U recently.