Irish weigh in with huge increase in waste recycling

IRELAND is recycling more than twice the weight of its population every year, according to the annual report of Repak.

Repak’s 2006 results announced yesterday show a significant increase in packaging recycling, from 565,000 tonnes in 2005 to 603,000 tonnes recycled in 2006.

This equates to the average weight of 8.8 million people, which is more than double the population of Ireland and has resulted in equivalent of 463,000 tonnes of carbon savings.

The report shows that in 2006, the equivalent of 220 million glass bottles, 3.7 billion cereal boxes, 214 million aluminum cans and one billion plastic drinks bottles were recycled.

During 2006, household packaging recycling rose by 24% from 2005 and while this is a significant increase, it only represents 29% of all recovered packaging, but accounts for 70% of total Repak funding.

The results this year also show a 12% increase in glass recycling reflecting an increased use of bottle banks.

“Recycling rates have continued to grow and both businesses and householders deserve to be congratulated,” said Repak chief executive Andrew Hetherington.

However, Mr Hetherington warned that recycling costs will increase in the immediate future as a more varied selection of packaging will have to be recycled from the household bin to meet EU targets.

The Repak report shows that the voluntary members scheme signed an additional 268 companies in 2006, bringing total membership to 2,165 companies with members paying €23.7 million in packaging levies towards supporting packaging recycling in 2006, an increase of €1.9m on 2005.

Repak member companies account for 61% of the packaging placed in the Irish market, which shows that there are a still a lot more companies who are not paying for the recovery/recycling of their packaging.

Repak says if Ireland is to meet its recycling target of 65% by 2011, it will need to recycle or recover more materials from domestic or household bins which is significantly more expensive than the recovery of commercial packaging tonnes.

Repak estimates that €180m needs to be invested by Irish industry in packaging recycling over the next five years to meet our next EU packaging recovery targets.