Irish Examiner view: Protecting the planet starts with recycling

Improvement needed

Ireland’s amount of waste produced is far above the EU average, the EPA’s report said, with more than half generated from households.

You can judge much of a citizenry’s determination to alter behaviours to tackle climate change by its attitude to a relatively small-scale personal issue — the management of domestic recycling.

Some countries have a formidably strict list of rules. In Japan, where refuse is collected every day, there is a strong delineation between how various types of material are recycled. Housing developments and apartments typically have a block “monitor”, who will double-check that everyone is abiding by the collective regulations. There are financial penalties for regular offenders and, as ever more worrying statistics emerge about the levels of plastic waste in the world’s oceans being consumed by wildlife, and their eventual return into the human food chain, Japan achieves a recycling figure of 84% for its plastic waste. The American figure, by comparison, is around 10%.  The country has also, for many years, implemented a legal requirement on retailers and manufacturers to take back used air conditioners, televisions, washing machines, and refrigerators.