A proximity principle now structures upstream and downstream waste management activities. The implementation of this principle reveals tensions both between the norm and the situation on the ground, and between citizens who can refuse an infrastructure while, at the same time, being involved in binding procedures for reducing and sorting wastes. Citizens expect a local public service but want to keep away from the inconveniences of waste treatment. The identification of four registers of proximity (institutional, functional, activist, contested) allows the authors to develop the notion of ‘proximity regime’ to think through the plurality of forms of experience of proximity related to waste management activities.