Cork County Council reviews recycle stance

Pensioners living in parts of Co Cork which do not have free bottle banks are being discriminated against because they’re charged €3 “every time they put a few jam jars” in a civic amenity site.

Council officials have baulked at the idea of giving pensioners a waiver at civic amenity sites for small recyclable items, but are to re-examine the issue after it was raised by Councillor Gerard Murphy (FG).

Newmarket-based Mr Murphy said he had come across many cases where pensioners living in, or on the periphery of, some towns, were being forced to pay the €3 charge at the sites, because they did not have transport to go to places where there were bottle-banks — which exist in most towns and villages.

He cited the cases of Kanturk and Millstreet where there were no receptacles to take recyclables such as plastic, bottles and cans outside of the civic amenity centres which demanded the charge to dispose of items, no matter how small they were.

Council officials initially said they were not happy with allowing such people to offload small items free of charge at the centres. They said the pricing scheme was brought in to ensure the “polluter pays” principle.

They said if the policy for charging for recycling waste was changed it would be a retrograde step and would bring the viability of such sites into question.

If allowed it would require charges for residual waste be significantly increased .

However, Mr Murphy won support from colleagues when he explained that some people who were on a very limited income were trapped because they had no alternative but to pay up .

Tim Collins (Ind) agreed, asking if the council could place small receptacles outside the sites in the two towns to accept such recyclables. Officials claimed this would defeat the purpose of having the major centres which accepted all types of waste.

John Paul O’Shea (Ind) said the charges were there for a reason and that councillors had managed to reduce them for customers by one euro a few years ago.

“It doesn’t matter whether it’s three of four euros, that’s a lot of money to a pensioner. These people have no money and they just want to get rid of a few jam jars or bottles,” he said.

Mr O’Shea said a possible solution was to hold a special pensioner day where such people could dispose of jars and bottles at a discount.

However, it was finally agreed to ask officials to reconsider their original stance and come up with something which would make life a bit easier for the pensioners.