WASTE REPORT:IRELAND'S MANAGEMENT of household waste is "remarkably poor" and only slightly better than countries with the worst waste-management records in Europe, according to the European Commission.
The commission’s waste-management performance report ranks Ireland in 15th place out of the 27 member states in terms of how it deals with municipal waste.
Ireland’s performance was particularly bad in relation to ensuring householders had a waste-collection service, ending the link between the production of waste and economic growth and the levels of waste going to landfill.
While Ireland’s score of 19 points out a possible 42 puts it in the average range, the commission noted that it was only one point ahead of states ranked as having the worst waste-management practices in the EU, such as the Czech Republic and Poland. They both scored a ranking of 18.
It was also only marginally ahead of countries such as Estonia and Slovakia, both with a score of 17, and Italy and Latvia with scores of 15 and 14 respectively. These states are described by the commission as having “poor or non-existent waste-prevention policies”.
The country with the worst waste management performance was Greece which achieved a score of three, having no recycling, no waste charges, no waste plan, which sends all its waste to landfill and infringes almost all EU regulations in relation to the management and treatment of waste.
Austria and the Netherlands come out best, with almost perfect scores of 39 out of 42. Not far behind are Denmark with 37 and Germany with 36. These countries all have low rates of waste-production per household, high rates of recycling, low levels of landfill use, infrastructure to recover energy from waste, well-developed waste planning and high rates of compliance with EU waste directives and regulations.
Ireland just makes it into in the middle group of countries, achieving between 19 and 25 and ranked as “average-performing member states”.
The report says that in these states “not all households are connected to waste-collection” and “planning of future treatment capacity is not sufficient”.
It also characterises these countries as not taking the problem of waste sufficiently seriously, stating that “waste-prevention yet is not on the political agenda” and these states “do not make sufficient use of economic and legal instruments to move waste up the hierarchy”.
The European commissioner for the environment Janez Potocnik said the report confirmed his concerns that many member states were still sending “huge amounts” of municipal waste to landfill.
“Valuable resources are being buried, potential economic benefits are being lost, jobs in the waste management sector are not being created and human health and the environment suffer. This is hard to defend in our present economic circumstances.”
