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Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 29 Jan 1997

Vol. 474 No. 1

Adjournment Debate. - Waste Management Crisis.

I wish to extend my sympathy to the family of Brother Larry Timmons on his tragic death in Kenya.

The matter I raise is one that has gone unnoticed for quite a while. On 1 February 1996 the Minister for the Environment, Deputy Howlin, and IBEC announced amid a fanfare of celebration that REPAK was to be introduced. It was to take the responsibility for much of the work involved in collecting, recycling and reducing industrial and domestic waste from the Minister for the Environment. That fanfare has become nothing more than a whimper in the public mind and REPAK has faded from the memories of those in the industry involved in recycling.

The new company set objectives to collect waste from commercial outlets; to fund and extend the Kerbside operation to 50,000 houses; to fund and extend Rehab recycling operations and to set up a new household recycling system. It is a long time since that launch. The Minister has questions to answer and needs to take decisions on how he will implement the Waste Management Act, 1996.

On the same day, he pledged his full support for the development of REPAK and for its early "operationalisation", a marvellous example of beautiful rhetoric for which he is renowned. However, in terms of action we are left high and dry in many cases. Over the past ten years, waste generation has increased by 38 per cent and 92.1 per cent of waste collected still goes to land fill. The worst injustice is that some companies admit they generate waste and pay companies such as Kerbside the cost of recycling. Other companies flatly deny they play any part in generating waste.

This has continued because of the Minister's laissez-faire attitude to dealing with the crisis. It is ironic that some of the parent companies of the companies that claim they do not create waste here are prepared to pay in Germany and France for the cost of disposing of their waste through collection, recycling and waste reduction at source. The Minister should introduce strict regulations to off-load responsibility for waste management from the commercial sector.

The Joint Committee on Sustainable Development was told recently that waste contractors face an increase of approximately £14 in the cost of landfill. Others claim the increase will be even higher. As the economics of waste management is changing radically, the Minister must act quickly. Many aspects of waste management can be dealt with by regulation. Why is the Minister afraid to bite the bullet and introduce regulations? It is often said that politics is the art of the possible. When making sustainability a priority in policy making, politics should be the art of getting what is possible. As we are not yet at a sustainable juncture, the Minister must move quickly or matters will get worse.

REPAK, launched on 1 February 1996, is a company organised and financed by industry to co-ordinate and finance the collection and recycling of packaging waste. The establishment of REPAK was a landmark development for waste management in Ireland. It is an industry-led organisation which promises to make a substantial contribution towards the achievement of the Government's recycling objectives, especially the recycling targets for packaging waste.

The EU directive on packaging and packaging waste lays down a target recovery rate of at least 25 per cent for packaging waste by 2001 for Ireland and we are on course to meet that target. This is confirmed by the report on the national waste database published by the Environmental Protection Agency last July. The report indicates that the recycling rate for packaging waste in the household and commercial waste stream increased from 10.3 per cent in 1993 to almost 15.6 per cent in 1995. This progress is due to the combined efforts to date of Government, local authorities, voluntary organisations, recycling agencies and industry and, of course, the support of consumers. The process needs to be accelerated, however, and REPAK can make a substantial contribution to this.

The establishment of REPAK marked the emergence of a new relationship between industry and Government in tackling environmental issues. The Minister for the Environment has expressed strong support for REPAK and maintained close liaison with its development. He has undertaken to provide appropriate statutory support to ensure that businesses, such as REPAK, which participate voluntarily in schemes are not put at a cost disadvantage by non-participants.

The Waste Management Act, 1996 was brought into operation last July. Work has been in progress in the Department of the Environment since, on the development of various regulations to give full effect to the Act. The text of regulations the Minister will make to promote the collection and recovery of waste plastic from farms was published today. The regulations will impose obligations on suppliers of farm plastics to collect and recycle the wastes involved. It will be open to suppliers to comply with these obligations on an individual basis, or to participate in an approved scheme. The regulations are fully supported by the Irish Farmers Association which is developing a voluntary scheme for the collection and recycling of farm plastics in association with plastic manufacturers and other industry interests.

By mid-February the Minister will have published other similar regulations to promote the recovery of packaging waste generally. Those regulations will impose obligations on suppliers of packaging materials, packaging and packaged goods. The publication of those regulations will greatly facilitate the operation of the REPAK scheme and will further develop the partnership approach between Government and industry in dealing with waste issues.

Those regulations will be a herald of things to come. Following publication of the regulations on recycling, the Minister will introduce other regulations in the next few months to drive forward the process of achieving higher standards and better performance in other areas. Waste management remains high on the Minister's agenda and he intends to ensure that 1997 will be a year of significant progress in this field. I hope the Deputy acknowledges that.

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