Microchips have recently been fitted to the refuse wheelie-bins used by a group of Cork householders - the first signs of a quiet revolution which is set to affect every citizen in the State in the years ahead.
The devices, each the size of a 20 pence piece, have been attached to the bins of residents in Carrigaline, Co Cork, since Christmas. Used in conjunction with refuse trucks equipped with computers, each time the bin is lifted by the truck's arm, its weight will be logged.
The use of the technology will enable the local authority to measure how much refuse each of the 3,500 homes in the town produces. The pilot project is the first step towards making the polluter pay.
Within two years, Cork County Council hopes to replace refuse charges with invoices reflecting the true cost of treating the waste put out for collection. Local authorities across the Republic are planning to adopt a similar stance with the result that, for the first time, householders will be charged the full economic cost of dumping their refuse.
This is in marked contrast to the situation which has existed up to now, with local authorities spending £80 million on the collection and disposal of waste in 1998, but generating just £38 million in fees and waste charges.
Microchipping is one element in a major series of changes which will be introduced as the Republic moves to tackle its growing refuse crisis. Traditionally, the solution to refuse problems has been to bury it in a dump - with more than 90 per cent of Irish waste taking this route. The average Irish household produces a tonne of rubbish a year, of which just less than 5 per cent is recycled with the remainder going to the dump.
The Republic's economic boom is undoubtedly leading to ever increasing amounts of rubbish. The European Environment Agency recently reported that waste generation within the EU and the European Free Trade Area jumped by 10 per cent between 1990 and 1995, at a time when economic growth was running at 6.5 per cent.
Part of the problem of even assessing the extent of waste creation, is the absence of up-to-date data on how much we dump. The most recent data available are for 1995, when the Republic produced 42 million tonnes of waste. The EPA is expected to produce more figures later this month for 1998. They will show that municipal waste has continued to grow, but that quantities of material recovered were also up.
Internationally, the Republic has one of the worst track records when it comes to waste management. Only Russia, which dumps 97 per cent of its waste in landfills, has a worse record. Within the EU we are at the foot of the league table with Greece. Our record of landfilling 92.2 per cent of our commercial and household waste and recycling just 7.8 per cent of it compares to European average figures of more than 60 per cent for landfilling, 19 per cent incineration and 4 per cent composting.
"The over-reliance on landfill for municipal waste in Ireland is symptomatic of the low priority placed in the past on integrated waste planning," according to the Environmental Protection Agency. "Ireland is alone amongst the European Community member-states for its complete absence of incineration capacity for municipal waste and our composting rates also lag behind other countries."
However, this is set to change dramatically. The Government set a target that by 2013 half of all household and commercial waste will be diverted from landfill, while 65 per cent of organic waste will be composted rather than dumped. Under the plan more than a third (35 per cent) of household and commercial waste will be recycled, and 85 per cent of construction and demolition waste will be recycled.
The changes are partly being driven by Brussels which has set member-states with recovery and recycling targets under the directive on landfill waste. Work to achieve these targets has already begun with local authorities working on waste management strategies which will include plans for an integrated approach involving recycling, composting (both at home and at centralised composting stations) and incineration. Under the plans, some of which have yet to be finalised, up to six incinerators could be developed around the Republic.
The Government has included £650 million in the National Development Plan to meet the cost of developing the infrastructure. It is also hopeful there will be opportunities for public-private partnership ventures in waste management.
One of the most dramatic results of the plans will be the reduction in the number of landfill sites. Despite the major reduction in the amount of material going to landfill, there will still be a need for landfill facilities for materials which cannot be recycled, incinerated or composted, as well as for ash from incinerators.
However, the Government has set a target of having just 20 landfill facilities by 2013. This compares to more than 200 dumps which operated in the mid-1980s and the 82 which have currently applied to the EPA for licences.
If the waste policies are successful, Ireland may not even need 20 facilities, according to P.J. Rudden of M.C. O'Sullivan, waste management consultants to a number of local authorities which are preparing waste plans.
The other most noticeable difference to the public will be the standards to which the new landfill facilities will be operated. "In the past a dump was literally that - a hole in the ground in a field, and then someone put a gate on it," Mr Rudden says.
In contrast, the new dumps will be developed to much higher EU standards. With the amount of waste going to landfill cut from the current 90 per cent to just 20 per cent, the new facilities will take less waste. Correct site selection for the new landfills will also improve their operation, says environmental consultant, Mr Jack O'Sullivan, who has assisted community groups in successful legal battles to have dumps shut. The next generation of landfills will be on sites which have a good depth of soil to cover dumped material, which are at least half a mile from houses or farms, and which are served by a good road network.
The new standards will be costly to achieve. Mr Rudden estimates that the cost of using the new landfills will be between £35 and £40 a tonne, compared to £5 a tonne five years ago. This has also been the experience in Germany where the cost of disposing of waste is £100 a tonne, regardless of whether it is landfilled, incinerated or recycled.
"In the past standards were low and resources were not being put into waste management, and the polluter was not paying," says Mr Rudden. "Now the standards are high and the costs do not just reflect the running cost but the after-care of the site when the facility had closed. Now we are seeing the real cost of landfill and it's getting closer and closer to the high costs of recycling."
In future, those increased costs will be borne by those who produce the waste going for landfill. This is why Cork County Council is running pilot studies on the wheeliebin microchips. Once the results of these studies are complete, householders can expect the technology to be adopted across the State. Dublin's Acting Assistant City Manager, Mr Matt Twomey, hopes to introduce a similar system in the four local authority areas of the capital within four years.