EPA report - Tons of missing waste cause for alarm

The Environment Protection Agency Waste Report for 2004, which was published yesterday, provides some encouraging figures.

A third of all municipal waste was recycled in 2004, up from less than a quarter the previous year.

This means that the country is already just 2% behind the target set for 2013.

In addition, the European target for this country to recover 50% of packaging by the end of 2005 was exceeded a year early, with 56% being recovered in 2004.

Those figures would suggest that a lot has been done, but there is still a lot more to do.

Almost three-quarters of Irish waste recycling is still being done abroad, and landfill still accounts for 67% of waste disposal.

This was down just 1% on the previous year, and it compares poorly with the figure of 10% in countries such as Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands.

Municipal waste increased by 4% in 2004.

However, the most disturbing figure of all is the 23% of Irish households which, according to the statistics, have either no access to collection services or choose not to use them.

As a result an estimated 227,374 tons of household waste have gone uncollected.

This figure for the uncollected rubbish should give rise to serious concern as to whether it is being burned or abandoned in backyards, where it will attract vermin, or dumped illegally elsewhere.

We need to know what is happening to the missing waste before it becomes a serious social problem.