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Waste generation is up and recycling rates are down. Gareth Chaney/Photocall Ireland!

Urgent action needed over 'worryingly low' plastic packaging recycling rates, says EPA

There’s “significant cause for concern” from these figures according to an EPA Senior Scientist.

THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION Agency (EPA) has warned that urgent action is needed to reverse a rise in waste generation, and significantly improve recycling rates.

Recycling rates for packaging and ordinary household or municipal waste declined, while rubbish production went up in 2019.

Plastic packaging rates of recycling are “worryingly low” at 28%, with a continuing trend towards energy recovery (incineration.)

Municipal waste recycling fell by 4% between 2016 and 2019, it currently stands at 37%.

The recycling rate for packaging dropped from 70% in 2013 to 62% in 2019.

Its National Waste Statistics Summary Report for 2019 has found that waste generation increased substantially that year.

  • Municipal, or household waste was up 6% to 3.1 million tonnes.
  • Packaging rose 11% to 1.1 million tonnes.
  • Hazardous waste also went up by 10% to 0.6 million tonnes.
  • Waste from construction increased by about a third, to 8.8 million tonnes.

A significant portion of Ireland’s waste was exported for treatment, that includes 40% of municipal waste and 65% of hazardous waste.

Just 16% of packaging waste was recycled, that was mostly glass and wood.

One fifth of the Republic’s waste that was treated with composting or anaerobic digestion was taken to Northern Ireland.

Anaerobic digestion is a process that uses bacteria to break down organic matter in an environment with no oxygen present, like animal dung, leftover food and wastewater.

waste The Environmental Protection Agency has created a visual Waste Hierarchy for 2019. EPA / Waste Report 2019 EPA / Waste Report 2019 / Waste Report 2019

 Falling rates

There’s “significant cause for concern” from these figures according to the EPA Senior Scientist Tara Higgins.

But she’s hopeful that changes made since 2019 may turn this around.

“Recent moves to allow soft plastics such as films and wraps into our recycling bins, continued expansion of brown bin services to households, new requirements for all packaging to be reusable or recyclable by 2030 and a levy on waste recovery are among the suite of measures needed to increase recycling and close the gap to new EU recycling targets.”

Ireland met all current EU recycling and recovery targets in 2019, and is on track to do so again in 2020.

However the EPA warns “significant improvements” will be needed in the near future to continue hitting those marks.

It says striking the goal of 50% plastic recycled by 2025 and 55% by 2030 will be “very challenging.”

16 Lockdown Dublin Almost half (46%) of Ireland's municipal waste was sent for incineration in 2019. Leon Farrell / RollingNews.ie Leon Farrell / RollingNews.ie / RollingNews.ie

Circular economy

The EPA has also called for existing businesses to be “transformed” to fit a so-called “circular economy.”

That is a system that’s based on re-using materials rather than sending them to landfill.

The report specifically mentions construction, food processing and manufacturing as examples of sectors that need “systemic change.”

Sharon Finegan, Director of the EPA’s Office of Environmental Sustainability, says “our rising levels of waste are unsustainable and need to stop.”

However, she says the changes compared to a decade previous (2009) are clear to see, but that pace needs to be kept.

“Ireland’s recycling rates for municipal and packaging waste have been in gradual decline for a number years, as efforts to improve recycling have been outstripped by the growth in waste being generated and the amount being sent for energy recovery.”

 

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    Mute Locutus Of Borg
    Favourite Locutus Of Borg
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    Dec 3rd 2021, 11:52 AM

    A buddy of mine drives a lorry from a recycling ♻️ plant. According to him, 60 percent of the plastic from there ends up on his lorry which he drives to the port to be shipped to Germany to power their incinerators. Recycling me ar$e

    207
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    Mute Brian Guilfoyle
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    Dec 3rd 2021, 12:51 PM

    @Locutus Of Borg: and does he have any other cool stories? My friend says he drives a giant mech from Frankfurt to Copenhagen, carrying all the unrecyclable rain water, which is then turned into Carlsberg

    69
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    Mute Locutus Of Borg
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    Dec 3rd 2021, 1:05 PM

    @Brian Guilfoyle: nope not really unfortunately, only that he is bringing plastic for incineration. But if he tells me anymore cool stories I’ll let you know .

    109
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    Mute David O'Connor
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    Dec 3rd 2021, 12:25 PM

    Walk into any supermarket to see how seriously they are taking packaging reduction/elimination. You’d do well to find 10 loose products in the fruit and veg section in most. The vast majority if not all don’t have to be wrapped in plastic.

    139
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    Mute Declan Gowran
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    Dec 3rd 2021, 1:23 PM

    @David O’Connor: Its not just supermarkets, all shops and industries, we moved to plastic containers from glass in the dairy industry also, it appears the products and produce last longer with plastic, remember the days the milkman would take the empty glass bottles similar to the publican for the distributor to re-use. our oceans are being destroyed with these plastics and manufacturing and the death of sealife mainly whales is known to have an impact on our CO2 levels. take a look at these known garbage patches we continue to ignore and think EV will solve the worlds problems

    This is industry and governments problems, I encourage all people to remove plastic items before leaving a shop and leave with the retailers and industry to tackle because they wont listen to individuals

    https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/great-pacific-garbage-patch/

    https://www.circularonline.co.uk/news/great-pacific-garbage-patch-growing-rapidly-study-shows/?gclid=Cj0KCQiAnaeNBhCUARIsABEee8XT7BdIWDjrCMudIYAQQU4uJGvpOnHx0n5Jht-tQblh1pz-0jiKmHMaAkVaEALw_wcB

    38
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    Mute Pedro
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    Dec 3rd 2021, 11:59 AM

    Relying on households and businesses to appropriately prepare recyclable material, for exampling washing all grease and residue from containers, is just not sustainable. It places too much onus on people, who unfortunately, can’t be trusted. Waste management need to do more at the point of recycling to increase the percentage of material that is salvageable.

    108
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    Mute Mike Fahey
    Favourite Mike Fahey
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    Dec 4th 2021, 1:48 AM

    @Pedro: or stop the problem at source – reduce drastically the level of packaging. Everything comes double/triple wrapped or wrapped in plastic when a more friendly version would work. Most of fruit and veg section now in plastic – Italy, Australia and other countries don’t have this plastic obsession. Just change the laws at EU level and put the onus on the supplier rather than the consumer. Taxing the consumer (like the levy adopted for plastic bags) won’t work for this.

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    Mute Eddie O'Neill
    Favourite Eddie O'Neill
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    Dec 3rd 2021, 12:56 PM

    So what happens to the shed load of plastic I send out in the green bin every 2 weeks. Is that recycled, sent to the incinerator or shipped abroad?

    Somewhat unrelated, I received notice a few days ago from our waste company of increase in charges for black bin and brown bin charges in the new year.

    33
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    Mute The Kerry Slug
    Favourite The Kerry Slug
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    Dec 3rd 2021, 1:16 PM

    We’re Irish. Our streets are covered in dog foul and chewing gum. Our country lanes are fringed with litter. Everywhere you look there’s a bottle or a wrapper on the ground. Fat chance getting us to recycle.

    52
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    Mute Jangles
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    Dec 3rd 2021, 12:46 PM

    Kells recycling centre in County Meath run by Oxigen still don’t accept plastic film as recycling. They say put it in waste skip.

    30
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    Mute Burt Macklin
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    Dec 3rd 2021, 2:15 PM

    Bring on the Christmas toys

    12
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    Mute lelookcoco
    Favourite lelookcoco
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    Dec 3rd 2021, 6:06 PM

    @Burt Macklin: Hot on the heels of the Hallowe’en tack that festooned people’s houses.

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    Mute Lisa Crombie
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    Dec 3rd 2021, 10:23 PM

    They increased the amount of items that can be recycled, but not the amount of collections. My recycling bin is overflowing every week, so much so that I have to put some of it into the general waste. Between the wind blowing it everywhere and animals ripping open the over flow bags, the place is a disaster. And it’s not just my bin, I see neighbours putting out several sacks of recycling waste beside their bins, and they are not always taken during collection, a lot of it ends up blowing around the street. They need to increase their collections.

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    Mute Mike Fahey
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    Dec 4th 2021, 1:51 AM

    @Lisa Crombie: or reduce needless consumption and make choices that don’t have such environmental damage…..

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    Mute lelookcoco
    Favourite lelookcoco
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    Dec 4th 2021, 8:40 AM

    @Lisa Crombie: You can request a second bin

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    Mute lelookcoco
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    Dec 3rd 2021, 6:05 PM

    If we were really being charged for pay per weight, people would recycle more. As it is we are discouraged by being charged a fixed rate regardless of how much you have in the bin. Instead of using the brown bin, I dump food waste in the black bin so I get to the fixed charge threshold of 20kg. Only the Green Bin is truly charged for what it weighs.

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    Mute Pete Lee
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    Dec 4th 2021, 9:18 AM

    1. Remove all parking for government employees and td to motivate public transport
    2. Tax packaging by weight to volume to cut out empty boxes
    3. Tax airline fuel

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    Mute P Mc G
    Favourite P Mc G
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    Dec 4th 2021, 6:15 AM

    Ireland still in the dark ages when it comes to recycling. All talk no action. FFG out.

    1
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