International Review of Waste Management Policy - Department of ...

the original or other purposes. It includes the reprocessing of organic material but
does not include energy recovery and the reprocessing into materials that are to be
used as fuels or for backfilling operations” 123. This Directive states that Member
States shall take the necessary measures designed to achieve the following targets
by 2020, “the preparing for re-use and the recycling of waste materials such as at
least paper, metal, plastic and glass from households and possibly from other origins
as far as these waste streams are similar to waste from households, shall be
increased to a minimum of overall 50 % by weight” 124 .
For household waste, recycling policy has been driven, in Ireland, by targets set out in
policy document “Changing our Ways, 1998”, by producer responsibility legislation, by
the landfill levy and by the requirement to implement pay by use (PBU) system
(though this is not being implemented in all local authorities). The landfill levy has
raised revenues which are paid into an Environmental Fund, along with funds raised
from the plastic bag levy. The proceeds are used to support a range of measures,
programmes and schemes to prevent or reduce waste, the operation of waste
recovery activities, litter prevention, environmental partnership projects and
environmental awareness, education and training. In 2007 €17,246,428 of the fund
was paid to local authorities to assist in capital costs associated with the provision of
waste management infrastructure, while €11,914,847was paid to local authorities to
assist with the operational costs of waste management. This funding has allowed a
large number of recycling facilities/infrastructure to be put in place in Ireland, which
has had a positive impact on recycling levels in Ireland.
A key issue for Ireland is the freedom of the market for household waste collection.
This freedom is most likely to be increasing the costs of waste collection to
households to above levels, which might otherwise prevail. Household waste
collection costs are rather high in Ireland compared with other countries, and this is
unlikely to be conducive to bringing more households within the formal waste
collection infrastructure. Rather, it is likely to act as an incentive for some households
not to have their waste collected, with all that this may imply in terms of unauthorised
waste activities including waste burning, and dumping.
The situation in Ireland– where private and public sector may compete openly for
custom from households (competition in Ireland is in the market and not for the
market) – is almost unique in Europe. It is an awkward situation on which to base the
development of sound collection systems and infrastructure precisely because
recovering additional investments cannot be guaranteed in such an openly
competitive market. The nature of the system becomes driven by price, and the
willingness of the service providers to take on risk.
Whilst the matter has recently proved the subject of controversy in Ireland, the
overwhelming majority of other countries grant, effectively, either a monopoly to a
123 Directive 2008/98/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 1 November 2008 on
waste and repealing certain Directives.
124 Directive 2008/98/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 1 November 2008 on
waste and repealing certain Directives.
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