Donal Hickey: Circular Economy Fund open for applications now

Schools, community groups, sports clubs, festivals and events can all apply for this funding — link below

Cork County Council has launched a new Circular Economy Fund

How we dispose of plastics continues to be ‘serious challenge’ as we’re off-track in meeting mandatory recycling EU targets, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Ever since bottled water started to become popular in the 1980s, we use millions of plastic bottles in Ireland annually. Depending on which expert you listen to, it is estimated that fewer than half of the bottles are recycled. And, the use of plastic for many other purposes has, of course, grown massively While Ireland has high recycling levels for glass (84%) and paper/cardboard (73%), just 28% of plastic packaging is recycled, making it a gigantic task to reach the EU’s 50% target next year.