Irish Examiner view: Trash talk that might save the Earth

emanding that all waste must be managed by each country at the point at which it is created will do the world a favour

Sat, 25 Oct, 2025 - 01:00

A contributor to the Irish Examiner this week wondered forlornly about what has changed in three decades regarding prevailing attitudes to the increasingly vexed and serious issue of waste management in the Republic.

Our approach, he said, has been “reactionary”.

Successive political elites have done little to seize the proverbial bull by the horns and tackle the problem at source. Why, he asked, have we ignored the proactive concept of taxing all waste at the point of creation to close off its entry into the supply chain?

Punitive taxation is a stock answer suggested for almost any ill of the capitalist society.

While it might have its place in changing human behaviour, it is all too common that the outcome is to place more financial burden on ordinary citizens while simultaneously swelling the coffers of governments that already take too much out of our pockets.

The solution to the challenge of global waste disposal, and the devastating pollution and illness which accompanies it, must surely be more draconian.

Put simply, all nations should be prohibited from sending their rubbish abroad.

A significant change in the “out of sight, out of mind” distribution channel for receiving the garbage of wealthy nations commenced in 2018, and it was stepped up in 2021.

That was when China implemented what it described as its “national sword” policy and refused to accept overseas solid waste.

Since then, the barges, containers, and tankers of the world’s disposable society have been circling the globe like a symbolic Flying Dutchman looking for ports that will take them.

Many of them found a new destination in Turkey, which has become Europe’s recycling hotspot even for unrecyclable plastic. Not that we weren’t warned. It was way back in 1967 in The Graduate when the diffident Benjamin Braddock was told by his neighbour Mr McGuire: “I just want to say one word to you. Just one word . . . plastics.”

Then, as now, it symbolised cheap, mass-produced items and superficial values. What we didn’t properly understand in the 60s, but do now, is the high level of toxicity the product brings.

Even our obsession with single-use plastic remains.

Some fiddling attempts to tackle this have taken place, partly explaining why you can no longer buy a bottle of up to three litres in size unless its cap is attached to the main part of the container. Whether this has led to a marked increase in re-use is questionable.

From this January, single-use plastic beverage bottles had to contain a minimum of 25% of recycled material.

Even those meritorious souls who signal their virtue by carrying a reusable water bottle everywhere are not entirely free from criticism.

The Booker Prize-winning author, Ian McEwan, said this week that the modern “obsession” with carrying a water bottle everywhere is “deranged.”

He told the Cheltenham Literature Festival: “How did it come about that we accepted this? It’s a very small thing, in a sense, but it’s a symbol of how life can change without us really noticing.”

Those changes are manifest in locations such as Turkey, Malaysia, and India, where plastics, the detritus of fast fashion, and more, generate trash fires and poisonous fumes to contaminate the atmosphere and water tables. It is testimony to the reality that great swathes of the circular economy just don’t work, and are making humankind ill.

In Ireland, the subject is controversial. Witness the long-running and ongoing controversy over Indaver’s plans for incineration of hazardous waste at Ringaskiddy — the company describes it as a “resource recovery centre”.

While that argument will continue this autumn and into next year, there is a bigger picture to consider.

If we are looking for an international cause to champion in which we can make a difference, then demanding that all waste must be managed by each country at the point at which it is created will do the world a favour. And save a lot of lives.

Count on Germans to lift our spirits in a crisis

The person who first invented the phrase that you should “never let a good crisis go to waste” would be pleased by the activities of German company Böcker this week, which decided to follow through on the Teutonic phrase “die Gelegenheit beim Schopfe packen”.

This, according to the online translation dictionaries, means to “grab the opportunity by the forelock”, which is what the firm from Werne near Dortmund did when the perpetrators of the €88m Napoleonic jewellery heist used one of their now world-famous Agilo furniture elevators to pull off their caper at the Louvre in Paris.

In a campaign on Facebook and Instagram, a picture of the crime scene with the abandoned lift carried the headline: “When you need to move fast.”

The supporting text proclaimed the equipment can carry “up to 400kg of treasures at 42m per minute — as quiet as a whisper”.

Böcker says it Instagram messages normally reach around 20,000 people. This post has hit the 1.7m mark. Who says the Germans don’t have a sense of humour?

In a world of pure imagination

On the face of it, news that the Booker Prize is to grant an annual award of £50,000 (€57,000) for the best fiction written for readers aged eight to 12 hasn’t come a moment too soon.

Concern has been rising about the increasing primacy of screen-based activity and shortening attention spans. Where once children could immerse themselves for hours in books, empirical evidence suggests they struggle to focus for more than a few minutes without checking a phone.

This summer’s report from Children’s Books Ireland (CBI) noted that the average child in the Republic owns 20 books, a drop from the figure of 30 books recorded in 2023. The average is highest among those aged 5-12, who own 25 on average, and girls of any age, who own 22 on average.

More than one-fifth of parents believe that the most important factor when choosing a book for their child is that it will teach them something. But this could be a mistake, said CBI. The benefits of reading for pleasure are wide-ranging, including increased happiness, positive mental wellbeing, academic success, and fewer socio-emotional difficulties.

This is where content comes in and Ireland has a rich history.

The Irish Museum of Childhood in Dún Laoghaire provides a stimulating list of “canonical texts” including work from Oscar Wilde, Ella Young, Maud Gonne, and Cork’s Patricia Lynch to more modern authorship from such as Eilís Dillon, Kate Thompson, and Siobhán O’Dowd.

The award launches next year, with the first winner announced in early 2027. It will be decided by a mixed panel of adult and child judges, a first for a Booker award.

The prize will celebrate contemporary children’s fiction written in or translated into English and published in Britain or Ireland.

As with the adult Booker and International Booker prizes, shortlisted authors will each receive £2,500 (€2,800).

Irish authors have a pretty good record in the Bookers, with five outright winners, starting with Iris Murdoch in 1978 and another four in the past 18 years. Some 37 have appeared on the longlist, making Ireland the country with the most longlisted authors relative to population size.

In the fortnight that we celebrate the original publication of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe by CS Lewis, and the launch of Phillip Pullman’s final Book of Dust novel featuring his formidable heroine Lyra Belacqua, it is worth remembering that many young people’s books are enjoyed equally by adults.

We’re sure that the new Booker Prize will add to the oeuvre.

As Willy Wonka sang as he took children into the Chocolate Room: “Come with me and you’ll be in a world of pure imagination.”

Best of luck to the Irish authors.

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