Rehab renews recycle plea
More than 20 million bottles of wine alone are consumed in Ireland over Christmas and the new year, making it Rehab Recycle’s busiest time of the year.
New collection services are being put in place to deal with the increase in glass deposited at its network of bring bank sites during the festive season.
“Rehab Recycle has been working flat out over the Christmas and new year period. Four additional vehicles are on the road and extra collection services have been put in place to deal with the increase in glass volumes,” Bob Rowat, general manager of Rehab Recycle, said yesterday.
Glass deposited in Ireland’s rapidly shrinking landfill sites will never decompose.
“Archaeologists are still finding glass used during Roman times, so we would urge people to recycle,” said Mr Rowat.
“Glass is the easiest packaging material of all to recycle and can be used time and time again. Recycling just one bottle or jar saves enough energy to power a television for 20 minutes or a 100-watt light bulb for almost an hour.”
He appealed to people not to bin glass bottles and jars and to bank them instead at their local bring centre.
Rehab Recycle also asked people to segregate glass by colour and to remove any boxes or plastic bags they may bring with them. If bring banks are full, people are asked to be patient and hold onto their bottles.
“A huge amount of waste, such as plastic bottles, wrapping paper and cardboard boxes, is generated over the festive season,” said Mr Rowat. “All of this packaging waste is recyclable and does not have to end up in landfill and so we would remind people to deposit this waste in the relevant paper and plastic bring bank containers. By dumping it on the ground next to glass and other bring banks, you may be prohibiting the collection lorries from accessing and emptying the sites.”
Last year, Irish households recycled 111,283 tonnes of glass, the equivalent of 220 million glass bottles. Repak, Ireland’s first voluntary initiative between industry and the Department of the Environment, is targeting all types of used packaging. It is aiming to recycle 45% of the extra 80,000 tonnes of used packaging generated over the festive period.
www.repak.ie
