Waste scheme ‘helped boost recycling’

Eddie Cassidy

Significantly, glass recycling in the same period, 2002-2004, increased by more than 40% to 1,176 tonnes while paper and plastic recycling generated 2,000 tonnes in the region.

The promising recycling trends were outlined to second level students, municipal authority members and business interests in advance of the planned opening, in coming weeks, of a new E3 million waste and recycling centre in Clonakilty.

Figures produced by the county council also showed glass recycling in the tourist town alone increased by almost 60 tonnes over the past two years to 202 tonnes.

The county council’s senior executive engineer Jerome C O’Sullivan said existing recycling facilities at car parks off Ashe Street and Kent Street will be transferred to the new waste and recycling centre on a two-acre site at Cohen Industrial Estate.

Household recyclable goods, from batteries to beverage cans and newspapers, along with glass, scrap metal and garden waste, will be accepted free of charge at the centre, although charges will apply to the commercial sector and to people

depositing unusable waste.

Mr O’Sullivan said all waste would be tipped into a sealed container that would not remain on site for more than 48 hours.

“We are hoping that by inviting the public to the centre in advance of it becoming operational, we will demonstrate that it will not be an eyesore or a public health risk,” he said. “There was a public perception, in some communities, that a waste and recycling centre would attract certain elements that would be scavenging the site.

“Nothing could be further from the truth. The new Clonakilty centre is in the middle of an industrial centre close to residential properties, an hotel, cinema and leisure centre and adjacent to the agricultural showgrounds and a nursing home.”

Three full-time staff will be engaged at the centre, where the yearly operational costs will top E400,000.