36% rate of recycle bins being fouled 'cannot continue'

More than a third of all household recycling bins are contaminated, the Oireachtas Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment has heard.

“We are still looking at 36% contamination and that cannot continue,” Kevin O’Donoghue of the department’s waste policy, resources and efficiency division, told a committee hearing yesterday.

Mr O’Donoghue was responding to senators and TDs gathered to discuss bin collection charges, the complexity of pricing by service providers, and the decision by some to charge for recyling in the light of the import ban by China which came into effect on January 1, leading to a rise in the cost of disposing of recycling.