Constant fight against throwaway ethos

A GLANCE at people coming out of supermarkets these days gives an insight into changing attitudes towards waste: the plastic shopping bag has all but disappeared.

It’s amazing how a 15-cent charge on such bags slapped on a few years ago could change people’s habits. They might spend €150, or more, on their shopping basket, but would baulk at the idea of paying a few cent for a plastic bag.

Which shows that financial incentives — or disincentives — work, with the introduction of pay-by-weight for waste disposal being another example.

In some ways, Ireland is having noteworthy success in getting people to manage their waste differently. We didn’t have a good reputation. Who could ever forget the monstrosities of dumps on main roads close to towns and cities, nearly always in places where the whole world could see them.

Old-style dumps are being replaced by more modern landfills. The grand plan, however, is to prevent as much waste as possible from going to landfill, something that calls for a cultural sea change.

We’re told two-thirds of domestic waste can be recycled. About 25% of waste in the average house is packaging, including paper, cardboard and plastic. Each household generates up to a tonne of waste each year.

Packaging is a waste stream we have been tackling well. At one time, Ireland recycled only 15% of such waste, but the figure has now jumped spectacularly to almost 64%.

This is because of the EU packaging directive, according to Darrell Crowe, marketing manager of Repak, whose sixth annual recycling week starts today. It’s all about awareness and getting more people to recycle more regularly.

How to deal with the ethos of a throwaway society is a constant challenge facing Repak.

The amount of waste generated per head of population is increasing at 3% annually: if anything, there seems to be even more packaging on the goods we purchase. And, Christmas is coming.

A clever way of getting around the problem, of course, would be to leave the wrappings, boxes et al in the shops.

Most packaging can now be recycled from the home, where a growing number of people now separate waste and put into at least three different containers.

Sales of domestic electrical goods continue to go through the roof, another sign of affluence. Nobody gets a broken TV, or hi-fi, repaired any more. They just buy a new one. But, we’re doing well at recycling. For instance, half a million appliances have been taken out of the waste stream and recycled since August of last year, including 85,000 fridge freezers, 78,000 TVs and almost 40,000 power tools.

An optimistic Environment Minister Dick Roche said this was a “clear indication of the public’s willingness to grapple with the problem of waste.”

“With a collection rate of 7kg per person achieved already, Ireland is on course to double the EU target of 4kg by the end of 2008.

Also, EPA figures for 2004 show the recycling rate for municipal waste (both commercial and household sources) has jumped from 9% in 1998, to 33% in 2004.

Meanwhile, Cedar Resource Management, leading recycler of waste electrical equipment, has invested over e12 million in its facilities in Dublin and Cork, installing equipment which allows the company to exceed targets for recycling on such equipment, as laid down by an EU directive.

The company, which collects this waste around the country, has already expanded its workforce by 30 this year and has plans to develop the business further in 2007. It has the capacity to process 30,000 tonnes of electrical and electronic equipment per year.

Under EU legislation, we are obliged to reduce the amount of waste going to landfill, but well over 80% of waste is still going there.

The Government is committed to an ‘integrated’ waste management system, including recycling, reusing, composting and incineration. The incineration issue is certainly a hot one that will become much hotter when work on major incinerators starts around the country.

We now generate more than seven million tonnes of waste each year and the amount has doubled in the past 10 years. A key question is: what do we do with all the waste that cannot be reused, or recycled?

Nobody wants to live near a dump any more and we regularly see communities objecting to recycling centres, so is incineration the only way forward in relation to non-recyclable waste?

Green Pary chairman and deputy for Dublin South East, John Gormley, has hit out at the “enthusiasm with which this Government promotes incineration over more sustainable waste management solutions”. A vocal environmental lobby makes the same argument.

Nevertheless, EPA director general Mary Kelly has welcomed significant improvements in waste management, especially in recycling, though stressing that the amount of waste continues to increase.

“Our goal now should be to reverse the amount of waste we generate. Imaginative policy intervention is needed if we are to adopt an attitude of waste prevention as a nation,” Ms Kelly remarked.