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IRELAND IS PRODUCING more waste now than it did a decade ago and is “almost certain” to miss EU recycling targets next year.
In 2022, Ireland generated 15.7 million tonnes of waste, according to a new report by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
That’s 20% more waste than 10 years prior, spelling trouble for Ireland’s efforts to reduce waste and move towards a circular economy.
Ireland’s progress towards a circular economy – a system of minimising waste and reducing the need for new raw materials by upholding the quality of products and materials for longer - is “stalling”, said David Flynn, the director of the EPA’s office of environmental sustainability.
“Current measures to prevent waste, to promote reuse and to encourage recycling are not enough to meet mandatory municipal waste and plastic packaging targets,” Flynn said.
The challenge for Ireland is to reverse these trends and significantly reduce waste production and increase reuse and recycling.
“Strong implementation of existing policies and the introduction of new measures that support investment in new circular economy infrastructure will help move us away from a wasteful linear economy.”
Ireland’s municipal waste recycling rate stood at 41% in the Circular Economy and Waste Statistics Highlight Report 2022. But the target is to reach 55% by 2025.
Recycling of packaging waste was at 60% but must be at 65% by 2025 to comply with the targets. 32% of plastic packaging was recycled, which was up from 28% in 2021 but the 2025 target is 50%.
Ireland generated 3.2 million tonnes of municipal waste (day-to-day waste from homes, offices, schools etc) in 2022, a slight increase from the previous year.
More than 1.2 million tonnes of the municipal waste (38%) was exported to other countries.
The EPA said that this highlights that Ireland’s capacity to collect and treat waste is vulnerable and underperforming, with an over-reliance on other countries to treat our recycling materials and overall municipal waste.
Half of Ireland’s waste is associated with construction and demolition, 85% of which is made up of soil and stone. In a positive, the EPA said, 82% of construction waste was recovered and much of it was used or recovered in back filling for land restoration, which was in excess of a required 70% recovery rate.
The proportion of households with access to a brown bin for food and organic waste dropped by 3% between 2021 and 2022 to 66%. This figure will likely rise in the years to come though as changes in 2023 mean waste collectors must provide households with a brown bin.
The EPA’s programme manager for circular economy Warren Phelan said that Ireland’s economy is characterised by a high consumption of raw materials.
“However deeper change is needed right across the economy to accelerate the transition to a more circular economy,” he said.
“Effective regulation, incentives and enforcement are required to influence businesses and consumers to adopt best practices in production, supply, purchasing, use and reuse of goods, products and services.”
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Of course we are, there are more than 2 million more people here!
@den: no there aren’t, the population increase is less than 600k, nowhere near ‘more than 2 million’
@JoeJoe Kilbride: Give it another year or two, hey joe joe…
@JoeJoe Kilbride: Wait till all the criminals from Syria start arriving as they will be claiming that they would be arrested etc in their own country!
@JoeJoe Kilbride: illegals
@den: The population was just 3.2 million people here 10 years ago?!?!…… That’s some growth. I think you’re getting 2014 confused with 1976?!?!
@den: why would that impact on percentages?
@Liam OTailliuir: Den, like his type, is not too smart and lacking upstairs.
@JoeJoe Kilbride: Who told you that!
@den: Ireland’s population increased by 734,900 in the last 10 years (15.8%), from 4.65 million to 5.38 million. The last time Ireland had a population 2 million less than today, of 3.38 million, was 1979, 45 years ago (5.38 million – 2 million = 3.38 million).
@den: Oh stfu lying. Eejit.
@ron don: Your lack of intelligence should be illegal.
@den: are you completely off your head????
@Paul Gorry: Ireland is heading towards being the next England. Very worrying and saddening.
@den: Ireland is heading towards being similar to England. It’s very worrying and saddening.
@JoeJoe Kilbride: that’s still about a 12% increase in population. You would expect there to be more waste than before tbf.
Nice that you word most of the article like its the general publics fault, focusing on recycling etc, when the data is very clear that it is construction and demolition that are not only the main increase, but main contributor to the overall number. Household waste has been pretty steady. What do you want? More construction of houses or less overall waste? Whatever it is please place the overall contributors to the problem as the headline and how that can be addressed. Me throwing a can in the recycling is making no difference to this
@adam faug: A precursor to more taxes/charges no doubt……. It’s the FG way unfortunately! Another instance of them not doing what a proper government should do by planning/managing the issue properly!….. 600k population growth as well (13%) which will be glossed over
@another one? what’s going on is the semi state sec: Do you ever think of anything else other than blaming two parties on everything.
the waste management rules are in place. people break them, people want shiny new offices and house extensions.
Five and a half million people now living on this part of the island…. Of course there’s more waste…
Surely the Journal can report on actual interesting stories and updates on what’s actually happening in this part of the island..
Although that type of reporting is normally carried out by real journalists….
@Blue Moon: you’re free to buy a paper
@Blue Moon: Governments are helpless in the face of commercial interests and have now forgotten how to provide the facilities that would allow us to recycle successfully on the island as opposed to exporting most of our waste. There will come a point where they can no longer shout at us, they’ll be out of tax ideas and will actually have to do something. and influx of people is one thing but it’s vasty outweighed by bad governance… more nothing incoming.
@Symon: With no guarantee you’ll get the truth!
@Blue Moon: Exactly.
Any chance the will take Alan shatter back with them…
@David Cotter: any chance of you pissing off?
@Hot Jim: nope..staying to defend dead kids…
@David Cotter: how?
@Hot Jim: we’ll by calling out your bigotry for a start
@David Cotter: but all your posts are saturated in bigotry and profanity, breathtaking hypocrisy right there
@Hot Jim: I recon Mr. Cotter sold you a new one tonight. When you were ” tired jim,” you made no sense, plus the alias other jims still made no sense!! But using them big words tonight/ early morning has me flabbergasted. Although still making no sense..
@David Cotter: Schatter already has Israeli citizenship, as he is a Jew. We however can’t force him to leave.
Common sense tells you why more people for a start
@Martin Ridge: Reasons come in two, you should also consider the other side of that coin.
Why do these kind of articles ignore the fact Ireland’s population has grown quite a bit within the last decade for a small nation..?
@Kieran Menon: why are you posting at quarter to 3 in the morning?
@Dennis L: Denis the menace
@Kieran Menon: Do you think that say the likes of Amazon, Temu, etc have progressed in the last decade?
Sounds like it’s time for a Tax on waste. More people = more waste. Tax on citizens, not on governmental civil servant waste.
Boycott Israel
@Dan Murphy: Boycott political comments that have absolutely nothing to do with the topic
@J B: Same to you JB,say something useful or say nothing at all
@J B: bring it on Dan…dead children more important than your filthy money
@J B: bring it on so…dead children more important than your filthy money
@Dan Murphy: no
@Dan Murphy:
Ireland has taken a totally unnecessary belligerent and self-harmfull approach to the ME conflict.
It would appear that the IDF and Hamas have both potentially breached multiple articles of the Geneva convention, with Hamas triggering the recent chain of events and the IDF responding.
However, the Irish government, instead of attempting to be an honest broker, has gone in totally against Israel and at the same time, gone out of its way to establish relations with the terrorist regime in Gaza. We would do well to distance yourself from Gaza and the Hamas terrorists that they elected to represent them when they were offered peace in 2004
@Thomas Sheridan: fugitive nazi war criminal satanyahu and his child slaughtering supporters are hurt today by the closure of the terrorist state of israels consul in dublin. Hopefully their backlash doesnt result in dead irish children
Ask China and India etc ,plus the Spanish fisherman who stole fish from the Irish waters that we’ve no control over thanks to the EU
But let’s join the UN so working class will fight
@Darragh Mcnamara: ask China and India about construction waste?
@Darragh Mcnamara: who woke you up
More people more waste I think that makes sense I say.
@Ned: there hasn’t been a 20% increase in population and there are also a lot more facilities available today than a decade ago
@JoeJoe Kilbride: so what are you saying them Irish.
@JoeJoe Kilbride: You should get out more and have a look around!
When shops cover fruit in plastic so they can have a bar code it produces unnecessary waste. Start reducing packaging at source.
We’ve always been a filthy bunch as a Nation (not generalising but certain parts of the Country)… Fly-tipping, random littering is rife (I’m speaking from Dublin) because of lack of respect and ignorance- no consequences for their actions. Food Cloud and similar initiatives have done so much to improve that particular area of waste however, we still have SO much more to do. My personal gripe is disposable clothing- my own Brother used to and probably still does, throw out a perfect pair of runners if they got scuffed. How ridiculous but my Stepdad enabled him by throwing him money.
@Donna Fallon: Absolutely agree. In general, we are a filthy nation. No respect for our own country.
This week I have repurchased a disused shop display fridge cabinet ,as a mini glasshouse,I’ve already planted garlic and herb seed and what a joy to look at.It would have gone to land fill or scrap yard.
They were all in perfect condition- in fact the love of my life who has since passed got great wear out of them all as they happened to be the same size. In the meantime, a spoilt brat has now got the opinion that everything is disposable. Why would he clean or repair anything when he can just buy a new one?! Actually drives me crazy.
It they make all producers have recyclable packaging at source before it gets to consumers. Not blame the consumer for waste they have been forced to use.
“rEtUrN dEpOsIt ScHeMe”
@Daniel Skelton: Is working amazingly well.
Not to mention a large percentage of people are just so lazy that they can’t be bothered to separate their waste. The amount of people that I see in work who just can’t be bothered to put their waste in the correct bins is staggering. It’s not rocket science, but to a lot of people their attitude is “it’s not my problem, why should I bother separating my waste”, someone else will sort it out
Oi Vey………
The vast majority are recycling and making great efforts on sustainability, which would lead one to question what’s happening beyond households playing their part. We should be way ahead of those “targets”. something must be amiss with processing..
Not surprised, all the uneducated crowd throwing garbage left and right, not enough bins in the city, not enough segregatory bins on the estates.
And on top of that, the “recycling scheme” that doesn’t work.
Instead of eliminating plastic, and going back to the glass bottles even with the extra costs we expect people to collect small bottles in their overpriced tiny apartments, queue in the stores, just to get the money back. Sorry people but we are living in fast paced society noone has time or will to collect and queue. This is a sad reality.
Love reading this nonsense in my driveway while my BMW M5 V10 warms up.
@Trump24: What Trump 23, I mean 24, wishes, how tragic.
The situation is probably even worse – figures are two years out of date.
Sure they said last year that over 70% of recycling waste gets burned
Amazing more waste but we have taken in 250000 migrants
Build a couple more incinerators and use the waste to generate heat
It’s only a target, doesn’t mean anything
Worth watching on this topic regarding plastic recycling
https://x.com/JohnStossel/status/1867243766605828401?t=ro2ossg_M2KdtcXNexRxFw&s=08
well we have had a 26 percent rise in population over the same period …so its going to be expected …duhh
@John O’sullivan: I have “Between 2013 and 2023, the population grew by approximately 10.3%”
When you see renovations of house or buildings the amount of waste of material is shocking. From the timber etc they the out to the off cuts they throw out.
I used to be famous for breaking material down to reuse on other projects when I built stage sets etc. I look at industrial skips and all I can see is useable timber etc, being thrown out.
Take the old structures out with more care and store it properly is the start of it.
All it needs then, is proper recycling, people to take apart the structures, remove the screws and nails etc.
So a sheet of 8×4 has a few holes in it, no big deal if it is not been seen. Same with lengths of timber. 23×4 lengths become a little shorter but when do you ever do you cut lengths of timber down to the size required.
Really
So, according to the EPA, most of our waste is from building related activities, and the baseline is 2014 – when the country was in a deep recession with no building activities.
It’s basically a strawman argument, then same as the ones claiming road accidents reductions and co2 reductions during the covid lock downs.
Ireland is heading down the same road as England. It’s very worrying and saddening.
Amazon and Temu packaging.
Recycle for what? Most of it is being incinerated.
Population is bigger so thats why
People are very cyclopean these days, don’t like the mélange at all, Has to be one tidy nursery rhyme to attain sleepy happyness.
That’s what happens when you have sky high bin charges.
have your say