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DUBLIN RESIDENTS whose household waste is collected by Greyhound will, from today, have to pay for recycling their household rubbish.
Previously customers were given recycling bags for free, which they could fill and have collected free of charge, as an incentive for them to recycle as much of their household garbage as they could. Now, however, customers will have to buy these bags.
Having to pay for the bags could remove the incentive for customers to recycle as much as they can – and puts some householders at a disadvantage, compared to others who have green bins that are still collected free of charge.
But then again, people outside of urban areas have to pay for their recycling – while those who use municipal recycling centres also have to pay for the privilege.
So, today we’re asking: Should householders be charged for recycling bags?
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Don’t they make money from recycling the rubbish we give them? So now they want us to pay to supply them with the raw materials they’ll process to later sell on? In what other industry does that make any sense?
We all pay for recycling regardless. I am in Galway and barna waste advise to use the recycle bin as it keeps the cost of the rubbish collection down. The companies collect both and have to make a profit to stay solvent. If they can keep my collection price down by selling the recycling then I am all for it. Complaining is not the answer here, competition is so change provider. I also have to agree bags are disgraceful, everyone should have bins.
Also barna have started using special trucks that have compartments for waste and recycling separately so one collection every 2 weeks saving diesel.
Vote with your feet.
Spot on Christopher, waste companies get PAID €85 per ton of recyclable materials. It is disgraceful that they should charge for this. I can understand charging for non-recyclable material as the companies have to pay to dump it but this is just blatant ripping people off.
@bunny johnson
Not everyone has the option of using bins, people who live in houses with no front or back yard have to use bags.
Derek – A waste company can’t just unload a truck full of crap and get handed €85 a ton for it. That price is for clean, processed material. Have you any idea how much it costs to process? Have you any idea how many bins need to be collected to generate 1 ton of clean material? Any idea on the cost of the truck and the staff needed to operate it? No? Didn’t think so………
Manufacturers should be charged, so they reduce the amount of packaging for products or standardize packaging to make it more easy to recycle.
This is what happens when rubbish collection, which should be a service paid for by rates, is outsourced to greedy companies that will grind as much money as possible out of the job.
they should offer a viable alternative to plastic, we should all pay for recycling, we all use the worlds resources, its the most basic common sense when you consider the laws of conservation of both matter and energy, matter/energy cannot be created or destroyed but can be changed from one form to another, which means whenever you use a disposable object, like say a polystyrene cup, and dont recycle it, you are wasting a finite resource that you could be recycling for someone else to use, its not fair to leave these things for future generations to have to sort out, plus recycling creates local employment
One of the more ridiculous decisions I’ve ever heard is to charge for recycling.
I’ve e mailed Dublin Council already, I hope others do likewise to try get this decision reversed or at least highlight that this is what happens when you put basic public services in the private sector.
I wouldn’t think it a bad idea for us all to organise a monthly recycling bag drop off on the steps of Dublin Council either….
Can you not simply change service provider??
Because that will definitely highlight the point to Dublin Council of why they shouldn’t play public services in the private sector.
Yours is the kind of forward, community based thinking that will see Ireland out of this mess, bravo
Just a tip pal. You’re not great at sarcasm.
Not great at sarcasm? On the internet? Well I never
I voted yes, because householders down the country have to pay for recycling. Why should urban dwellers be given freebies when the rest of the country has to pay.
Then you still haven’t answered the question of whether or not you believe people should pay. you’ve merely said ‘I do, so should others’
It’s a disgrace that people down the country pay for recycling, as well as all the other extra costs they’re forced to pay just for living there. I grew up in Clare, but I’m in Dublin now because there’s no way I could afford a proper house living down the country :/
No one should have to pay – not when our taxes are so high (higher than in Sweden I’ve heard), this should be a free service country-wide. And Greyhound have been giving this service free of charge for years, now with more customers and higher bin tag charges they have the cheek to say they can’t afford to keep it up? F*ck off.
Eleen, I know a Swedish woman here (she’s married to a man I know). She said taxes in Sweden are higher than here BUT she said that they literally only pay income tax and that covers absolutely everything. They do not have separate road tax, property tax etc. She said that they don’t pay for doctors, dentists, school books, uniforms, school bus, school lunches. It also covers all of their council services etc. I would happily pay 52% tax if my remaining income was left entirely to me. She can’t understand why Irish people aren’t on the streets protesting when we get absolutely nothing for the taxes we pay and then pay for everything else out of our remaining money.
There such be a price for the collection. No provider should have to maintain trucks, pay for diesel,or pay for workers out of thin air. I’m happy with the service I get.
We have being paying for our recycling for years guys :)
The incinerator in Louth is near my house. I see many recycling bin trucks going in and out of there, makes you wonder. . . . .
i have 2 bins, one for rubbish one for recycling, have to pay for both! The recycling cost less than the rubbish….its been the way its always been down here..how much is the charge?
Have 3 bins. 1 for recycling, 1 for rubbish and 1 for compost. Since our service provider supplied the compost bin the cost has dropped significantly as all food remains go into it saving in weight.
Our county council hasn’t implemented facilities for compost or something along those lines.. So even though our bin provider does compost bins, we can’t get them.. Wouldn’t mind but most of our waste is compostable.. Would have saved us a fortune!
I’ve seen some companies around here with a fourth ‘red’ bin for glass..
Not if we have property tax we shouldn’t have too..
But… these are private companies collecting this , there of course should be a cost incentive to recycling. (why don’t they give plastic glass and tin rebates anymore?). But I’m a little miffed that this question is only asked when its implemented in Dublin. I was paing for recycling 10 years ago and its gone up significantly since…
Excellent point Bilbo.. When I lived in Holland, the property tax/household charge ( whatever you want to call it) covered all collecting of rubbish including recycling for that year.. Will the same happen here I wonder??
When I was living in Holland (litre and bigger) bottles for water and soft drinks were reusable thick plastic bottles, you paid a guilder (clearly a long time ago -about 50c in new money) per bottle. Beer bottles were 15 guilder cent each and came in a pub-style plastic crate for 5 guilders. Outside the supermarket there was a self service machine with a slot for big bottles, and a conveyer belt for the crates, it could also count how many bottles in each crate, and pay you. You always had an easy place to put your empties and you got a few quid towards your shopping into your hand on the way into the shop. It’s not rocket science and the Dutch had it decades ago.
We get nothing for all the direct /indirect taxes we pay. No health services, no council services.
Why do we pay these taxes that are supposed to pay for these kind of services if we have to pay again privately?
Sorry, I don’t understand. Are you a castaway living on an unknown island off the coast?
Encouraging people to collect rubbish for recycling in single use bags is slightly illogical, they should provide bins instead ( free of charge plus the deposit).
Just change service provider!!! Greyhound took on a contract they cannot cover (either with service or profit). They will continue to do things like this until they raise a profit.
I’m looking into that for a relative of mine in central Dublin and from what I can see so far, her area isn’t serviced by anyone else. I’ve checked City Bin, Greenstar, Panda and a few others.
She’s in an area that still uses bags and sticky tags rather than wheelie bins.
Any suggestions for alternatives, feel free to tweet me!
I only recycle because its free, if they start charging ill just go back to black bagging all my rubbish together to save effort
C’mon Stephen make an effort for heavens sake, it’s your junk, accept responsibility
Why are bags needed at all? We have a recyling wheelie bin. Re-useable.
Making more rubbish to store rubbish is just daft.
If you live in a street fronting terrace with no external access to your back yard where do you put the wheelie bin?
thy are taking rubbish
Yes, why should urban dwellers not also have to pay for their recycling.
i honestly dont see the issue, i pay for my recycle bin in waterford so why are others up in arms over it?
The question should be ‘why are you not up in arms about paying for it in Waterford?’. Two wrongs don’t make a right after all
i’ve always had to pay for it, 4 quid every 2 weeks seems ok to me.
Well I’ve never had to pay for it and now out of nowhere it’s another extra thing I’ve to pay for. Not happy about it but I can’t do anything about it, it’s still cheaper then dumping it with my non recyclables. Although I’ll still be exploring other options. Since my wages were drastically cut (or levied even though it’s the same result) I’ve had interest rate increases, electricity bill increases, new taxes and I don’t know what else. Getting used to this :(
In theory, I have no problem paying for the bags – but €9 for six bags? That’s just taking the almighty p*ss, especially on top of their collection fees. Contact them to complain, dublin city council and lyour ocal td
I think recycling should be free – shouldn’t we be encouraged to recycle, not punished for it? And the amount of packaging on stuff these days is becoming increasingly annoying – manufacturers should either find alternative Eco-friendly ways of selling products to us or bear some of the cost of recycling all that plastic.
Once you start charging people for recycling, you’re taking a major backward step and encouraging people to give up on the concept.
So typical; while other parts of the country already pay for recycling, Dubliners start to moan.
Welcome to 21st century Dublin.
Well I can only presume you won’t have a high property tax to worrie about , unlike us Dubliners
I fail to see how the value of a home is connected to your rubbish? You generate the garbage, you pay for its removal. If you want to pay less, generate less of it, as simple as that.
The rest of the nation pays for it, so why would Dublin be any different?
Regarding the charge in rural areas: its harder to get to (petrol) and consider the price difference for living in Dublin compared to (let’s say) saggart. It’s about triple the cost living in town. That’s why townies shouldn’t pay.
Greyhound don’t drop off bags so there is nothing to pay for. Will request a change in provider.
At least that’s a way to justify it. I actually think nobody should pay for recycling. It reduces land fills.
Dublin it seems has to catch up on the rest.of the country on best practice recycling.
Dublin householders only being asked to pay for recycling now? We’ve been paying for it in Westmeath for years, same in Offaly! Not to mention that, the price for rubbish collection has increased by 50% in 18 months with similar pro rata increases for recycling. Dubs don’t realise how handy they have it! Go on Break out the thumbs. Green for Culchies, red for Dubs!
By the way, meant to say, you can’t blame private companies for trying to make as much profit as possible, that’s the nature of any business. You can on the other hand blame local authorities for allowing the gouging of the public and price fixing between “competitors” to continue unchecked.
I agree with Ian. We have been paying for all our waste here in Limerick (both general waste and recycleable waste for years. There has been a lot of media comment in recent years about paying for waste in Dublin. It seems that the media are only looking to encourage a public outcry when Dubs have to pay for this service.
Regardless of where you live, I think that some proportion of our tax’s/household charges should go to cover the costs of our waste collections. Ideally, as suggested by Andrea, like the Swedes, our taxes should cover all our services. Unfortunately, until we we are rid of the Troika, we will have little or no say in how we distribute what tax’s our government receives.
Greyhound stopped taking our rubbish bags months ago in the city centre. I think it is Oxigen now. They take the recycling from my road every two weeks if we put it into clear or white bags we buy ourselves. They stopped giving us bags ages ago, but don’t charge either.
Sure won’t the new property tax mean that local government will be paying for all this stuff ?!?!?!?!
I really don’t understand the nuance of this article. Recycling has been around from a long time now and is the norm. Apparently we’re quite good at it. The bag charge woun’t deter people who recycle – pust annoy them. Greyhound should have built it into the charge and not separate it out. How much are the bags anyway?
I’m a greyhound customer, I am actually going to stop recycling (except for glass and cans which I can bring to the local bins)
I think everyone should be treated equally! If people in rural areas have to pay for it then so should people in the cities. Personally, i think it should be free anyway.
My (shaky) understanding is nobody is paying for recycling as a raw material any more, but that they used to.
Which means the waste disposal people have to pay to do *something* with it (perhaps this is why another commenter mentioned earlier that they see recycling trucks heading to the incinerator).
I think it’s because China has developed its own recycling system (previously, it bought in material – from us and other countries), but the demand has either been met or gone down or something has changed, such that they no longer pay for it as a raw material.
At our local facility, they stopped “free recycling” about 2 years ago (and it was 2 years ago that I read about the reasoning, etc., which is why my understanding is a bit shaky), and brought in a charge. For my own bins, I get a deal on rubbish/food/recycling/bottles to get all of them collected.
Greyhound as a company leave a lot to be desired and are struggling to survive. People have come to realize they lack any coherent policies except to make money which they refuse to pay back debts to their clients. Their policy is aimed at ripping of clients at every available opportunity particularly the elderly. People should not have to pay for a recycling waste collection.
When I lived in Italy a couple of years ago, my community was in process of changing from a twice weekly all rubbish pick up to a mandatory recycling system which included a 6 day per week pick up of designated types of rubbish, including bio-waste, tin, plastic, glass, paper/cardboard, all other waste. We were provided colored bins and colored bags to sort the trash for pick up. Initially we were not charged for the process, but we were told that over the period of five years, they would be adding in charges for recycling service. The goal was to get folks “used” to the process. (As a side note, Germans have been recycling for many years, perhaps over 20, and now when their rubbish is picked up, it is also weighed and if you put out too much of any category of rubbish, you get an extra added to your refuse charge each month!)
Take your own clear bag to the Dublin City Council recycling centres. No charge.
Shop around and choose another company. The plus about living in Dublin is there are a few companies and there are also recycling centers that are free to use. Do something about it instead of moaning and the issue will sort itself out!
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