Despite the high-profile publicity campaigns, our levels of waste are increasing and recycling is as problematic as ever, writes Paul Cullen
For many of us, the weekly trip to the bottle bank or the conscientious filling of our green bin has become as much a part of modern life as drinking tea or doing the lotto. Recycling unwanted bottles, tins and packaging is our small contribution to saving the planet, and it has the welcome side-effect of emptying our houses of junk and saving on waste collection charges.
Yet behind the glossy facade of PR campaigns and the optimistic targets set by Government, there is evidence that all is not well in the world of empty bottles and flattened cans. Only this week, a local government report revealed large disparities in the performance of different local authorities in recycling. Meanwhile, those involved in the area speak of rising costs and a mismatch between demand and supply.
Illegal dumping has disappeared from the headlines over the past year, but there are still dark mutterings about the fate of many waste products supposedly intended for recycling and there are unaccounted "black holes" in the waste statistics.
The amount of waste we all produce continues its inexorable rise upwards. One of the main reasons we are recycling more is simply that there is more waste to recycle - 3 million tons of it in 2005, up from 2.7 million tons in 2002. Commercial waste is growing fastest, but the amount of waste the rest of us produce in our households is also increasing steadily.
Some environmentalists, while remaining supportive of recycling initiatives, wonder whether they act as a salve to our consciences rather than tackling growing waste mountains and overloaded landfills.
"The big issue is the production of waste," says Tony Lowes of Friends of the Irish Environment. "We have to get away from our throwaway culture. Products have to be built to last if we are to live sustainably."
It also seems strange that there should be so much debate about the "food miles" clocked up by the produce we buy in supermarkets, and yet so little discussion about the fact that the vast majority of recyclable waste collected in Ireland is sent abroad for processing or even dumping. At a time when our manufacturing output is shrinking, it is ironic that exports of waste remain so high.
Four out of every five tons of recyclable material are sent abroad for processing and the amount recycled here in Ireland in 2005 fell by 25 per cent. Most of it ends up in Spain and Portugal (77 per cent) or the UK (22 per cent).
WITH NO GLASS recycling facility left in the Republic, virtually all 93,000 tons of glass collected in bottle banks is sent to the UK. It's a similar tale with paper and cardboard; following the closure of a paper mill in 2005, just 2.6 per cent of material is processed in Ireland. Discarded electrical equipment, scrap iron, plastic and textiles also head overseas for processing because so few facilities can handle them here.
This week's report from the Local Government Management Services Board showed huge variations in the proportion of materials recycled through kerbside collection in different counties, from a low of 6.5 per cent in Co Carlow to 58 per cent in Co Longford.
Massive exports of old and dirty materials, ever-rising production of waste and patchy performance on recycling - it doesn't amount to a particularly impressive balance sheet, notwithstanding the various action programmes, publicity campaigns and targets adopted in recent years.
The reality, for this writer, is that there are fewer opportunities to recycle used material than there were when I lived in Switzerland 20 years ago - no "brown bin" recycling for garden waste, no recycling of many plastics and an unreliable kerbside collection service in my area of Dublin.
Then there are the 534,000 tons of hazardous waste, contaminated soil, industrial waste and construction waste which we sent abroad in 2005. This hazardous waste includes 96 tons of small batteries, 25 tons of old medicines and 2,500 tons of asbestos waste, to name just a few categories, and most of it ends up in Germany.
The underdevelopment of Ireland's waste processing sector is evident too in the import figures, which show that plastics are the only category of material brought here in any sizeable quantity for reprocessing.
About one-third of municipal waste is recovered for recycling, according to the EPA. However, recovery rates vary hugely depending on the material involved. Two-thirds of glass is recovered and half of paper and cardboard, but only 20 per cent of plastic and 7 per cent of textiles are recovered.
Some targets are close to being met, such as the 35 per cent recycling target by 2013, while others are going awry; just 23 per cent of household waste is being diverted from landfill, some way off the 50 per cent target for 2013. And what are we to make of the figure of more than 200,000 tons of "uncollected" waste? Where is this rubbish going? It seems about 10 per cent is fly-tipped, while an unknown amount is burned in gardens.
Another trend that has gone largely unnoticed in Dublin is the privatisation of waste collection. Almost half of all household waste is now collected by private operators and at least 14 local authorities have opted out of waste collection altogether.
Recycling is all about doing your bit, but it helps when officialdom lives up to its promise. While sales of compost bins are thriving, local authorities have been slow to provide householders with "brown bin" collection services for kitchen and garden waste. At present, only Galway, Waterford and a small part of Dublin have such services.
Waste prevention should be the ultimate goal of any strategy; buying less, choosing goods with minimal packaging, or simply consuming what we purchase. Yet the official target for waste prevention is just 6 per cent.
EXCESSIVE PACKAGING IS frequently identified as a problem area but Repak, which subsidises the collection of packaging waste through levies on member companies, rejects the suggestion that companies have no incentive to reduce packaging.
"Packaging is a cost for business, so over-packaging is avoided," says Darrell Crowe, marketing manager of Repak. "We charge members according to the amount of packaging they need collected so there is a clear incentive to reduce waste."
Here, too, the system is creaking, with rising costs impacting Repak's business and claims that many companies are not playing ball by the waste regulations. Under law, most companies are obliged to take back packaging waste from consumers, unless they sign up to an industry compliance scheme such as that operated by Repak.
Yet only 61 per cent of eligible firms are members of Repak. Another 4 per cent - including Power City and Supermacs - are self-compliant, which means that, in theory at least, they are obliged to take back packaging from the general public. That leaves 35 per cent of firms which, Repak believes, are doing nothing about their obligations.
Where have all the tyres gone? Recycling opportunity going to waste
Crumb Rubber Ireland (CRI) is a Co Louth-based firm that recycles used tyres. Casings are sent for recapping, the steel is sold for re-use, and the rubber is shredded and recycled for use in children's playgrounds, golf courses and running and equestrian tracks, mostly in Ireland.
"We recoup everything bar the sweepings from the floor," says Padraig Hand of CRI with undisguised pride.
The company has been operating for three years and the amount of rubber it processes has increased each year. Yet the problems it faces are typical of many firms operating in the recycling business - a shortage of raw material due to inadequate enforcement of litter and other waste regulations.
"We operate from 8am to 8pm under our permit, but we could run 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and still not meet the demand. It's astronomical," says Hand.
Some 40,000 tons of new tyres are imported into the Republic each year, and that doesn't include the tyres fitted on new cars. You wouldn't think, therefore, that there would be any shortage of used tyres becoming available for recycling.
Not so. Because of a shortage of used tyres, CRI operates at just 50 per cent capacity. The company charges €2 to collect used tyres, mostly from independent car garages in the main cities, but even this small charge is too much for some to take.
Many old tyres are used as ballast on farmers' silage pits and then, Hand suspects, end up forgotten behind a hedge. Another use is as infill in road-building schemes, which is ironic given the EU bans tyres from landfill.