Recycling in Dublin will be increased significantly within two years when facilities that will allow household plastics and bio-waste to be recycled are completed.
Work has begun on a site in Dublin that will enable plastics to be recycled, while local authorities are in the process of procuring two sites that would cater for bio-waste.
Matt Twomey, assistant city manager, said that the expansion of the green and brown bin schemes would divert about 170,000 tonnes of waste a year from landfill.
He was speaking after Minister for the Environment Dick Roche launched construction work at a facility designed to process green-bin materials in Dublin for the next 20 years.
When it is finished next year, the €28 million site at Ballymount will have the capacity to process more than 100,000 tonnes of materials a year. Mixed plastics such as milk bottles, fizzy drinks bottles and shampoo bottles will be sorted by polymer type and recycled. Local authorities are also acquiring two sites, at Ballyogan and Kilshane Cross, to cater for the recycling of brown-bin materials.
Mr Twomey said that each household produced about a tonne of waste a year, a third of which is bio-waste. This includes recyclables such as fruit and vegetable waste, kitchen waste and grass cuttings.
He said he hoped the brown bin service, which is running on a pilot basis in 20,000 homes in the Fingal and Dublin City Council areas, could be extended citywide within two years.
Plans to collect green bins fortnightly rather than monthly were also announced yesterday. The fortnightly service and the collection of plastic will start in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown on May 1st and will extend to 200,000 homes before the end of the year and to all 400,000 households in the region by mid-2008.