The government has admitted there is a need to “redouble our efforts” on recycling after the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) warned Ireland is very likely to miss EU targets.
Latest data from the EPA puts Ireland’s recycling rate at 41 percent. But the EU has mandated a recycling rate of 55 percent by 2025 and 65 percent by 2035.
Earlier this week, the EPA warned that Ireland is almost certainly not going to manage that.
A spokesperson for the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications said “this report from the EPA does show a concerning trend over a previous, decade-long period. Recycling rates did not keep pace with increasing levels of waste generation during that period, which is not the direction we all want to travel.”
However, the Environmental Protection Agency report is based on latest annual data which is for the year 2022 and the government maintains that since then progress has been made.
“Over the past two years, the Government has taken a range of new actions – to incentivise people and businesses to firstly reduce, and then recycle, their waste – such as allowing soft plastics in the household recycling bin”, the spokesperson said.
They pointed to the “major success” of the Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) for plastic bottles and aluminum cans, introduced this year which the department says has resulted in 800 million bottles and cans being recycled every month.
The government also pointed to mandatory brown bins for housholds and rules for businesses to seperate commericial waste as having a “significant impact”.
New EU law on packaging will also lead to a reduction in packaging waste, the spokesperson added.
“The Government has also dramatically stepped up its public awareness campaigns – encouraging reuse and recycling. Notwithstanding this, we all need to redouble our efforts to tackle excessive production and consumption.”