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A new national waste plan has been launched, which aims to get people to use fewer resources over the next five years.
Among other things, the plan encourages people to cut the amount of food waste they throw away by half and buy fewer clothes.
According to the plan, certain single-use plastic products will be banned from next July and a deposit and return scheme for plastic bottles and cans will be introduced.
The plan was published yesterday by the Minister of Communications, Climate Action and Environment, Eamon Ryan.
It contains over 200 actions, the overall goal of which is to move away from the current focus on waste disposal and treatment to ensure that materials and products remain in productive use for longer.
This will prevent the accumulation of waste and support the reuse of goods and materials in accordance with the new EU directives and the promotion of a circular economy.
The key objectives of the Waste Action Plan include:
- Significantly higher recycling targets for waste pickers
- Standardized bin colors statewide: green for recycling, brown for organic waste, and black for waste
- Environmental levies for the recovery of waste and single-use coffee cups to encourage recycling and reuse
- A waste monitoring body to manage consumer rights
- An education and awareness campaign to improve waste segregation
- Halve food waste by 2030
- Waste segregation infrastructure for apartment dwellers
- A national deposit and return plan for plastic bottles and aluminum cans.
- Single-use plastics ban from July 2021, including cotton buds, cutlery, plates, stirrers, toothpicks, straws, and polystyrene containers.
- Commitment to prohibit other products such as non-medical wet wipes, single-use plastic hotel toiletries; single-use sugar / sauce / mayonnaise and similar items
- All packaging will be reusable or recyclable by 2030
- Work with Irish designers and retailers to promote eco-design for clothing and textiles.
Welcome plan for environmental groups
Environmental Pillar, the leading coalition of Irish environmental groups, welcomed the plan, calling it a solid plan to reduce our waste over the next decade.
Environmental groups Voice and the Conscious Cup campaign called it a progressive and impactful plan that will kick off Ireland’s journey to reduce its overconsumption.
They said many of the policy measures are designed to redefine how we view resource use and waste, and investigate how to prevent waste at the beginning rather than build disposal systems to get rid of waste at the end of the product.
Dr Neil Walker, Head of Infrastructure at IBEC, the group of trade representatives, said that companies must prepare for the transition to a circular economic model and that it is important to understand that the environmental footprint of a product or service is largely determined measured at the design stage.
However, the Irish Waste Management Association said it will continue to oppose the introduction of the Deposit and Refund Scheme outlined in the plan.
He questioned the value of the scheme for Ireland’s management of recycling fees and also highlighted some negative impacts it could have on households.
The IWMA claimed that the scheme will result in people paying more for the drinks they buy.
He said that to get their deposit back, people will have to store the raw beverage containers at home, then take the containers to the local supermarket and place them individually in a machine that will give them store credit.
The association said this would be much more cumbersome for homeowners than placing plastic bottles and cans in recycling bins on their doorstep.
He also suggested that households will have to pay more for their household waste collection service, as the service provider will lose the value of the containers.
In the worst case, the IWMA said recycling services could completely collapse as the materials remaining in recycling bins cost more to recycle than to recover as fuel at waste plants to generate power.
However, Minister Eamon Ryan said that if we keep it at current consumption rates, we will need three planets to meet our resource needs by 2050.
Currently, 200 million cups of coffee are thrown away in Ireland every year, which is equivalent to six disposable cups per second.
Meanwhile, we are producing around 3.2 tons of waste for every man, woman and child in the state, while food waste costs households an average of 700 euros per year.
It is also estimated that the amount of clothing purchased in the EU per person has increased by 40% while more than 30% of clothing has not been worn for at least a year.
In 2018, a report from the Environmental Protection Agency found that approximately 70% of all waste in commercial sector waste bins could potentially be diverted to recycling or brown bins.
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