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

The same study went on to highlight some difference of opinion between DoEHLG and
Repak:
215
Repak gives the system's waste prevention a low rating, as does Enterprise
Ireland, which points out that the weight-based payments give little motivation
to reduce the volume of packaging produced, and that opportunities to benefit
financially from packaging prevention and reduction strategies are not clear to
companies. The Department of the Environment argues that the scale of
membership fees has been designed to relate directly to the amount and type
of packaging placed on the market. If less is placed on the market,
membership fees will decrease correspondingly: an implicit waste prevention
measure.
This is of some interest as it supports the notion – as would appear to be the case,
anecdotally, in other countries - that if the incentive for waste prevention is to hit
home, the full financial responsibility for the obligation should rest with industry.
Currently, this appears not to be the case with the existing compliance scheme, with
collectors still facing a ‘non-zero’ net cost for collection of waste for recycling. The
logical solution might be one where the full costs of an efficient recycling collection
were borne by obligated producers. 234
12.7.2 Benefits in Terms of Recycling
The intended impact of the Irish Packaging Regulations on recycling to date has
specifically been to increase the rate of packaging recycling in line/ in reaction to the
binding European targets. The national packaging recycling targets are based on the
tonnages recycled as a percentage of overall tonnages of waste packaging generated
that year. In the time period since the introduction of objective of meeting the
recycling targets have been met.
Estimates of packaging consumption are based either on packaging data from Repak
or on packaging data from local authorities collating data from self compliers i.e. the
estimate of the tonnages of packaging waste consumption is based on the tonnages
of packaging entering the waste stream for recovery.
According to data provided by Repak, the packaging waste target of 25% of packaging
recycled in the year 2001 was met and exceeded (with 27% packaging recycled),
while the target of 50% of packaging recycled in the year 2005 was met and
exceeded (with 59% packaging waste recycled).
In the National Waste Report 2007 published, the section on packaging waste makes
the comment: 235
234 It should be noted that this is one reason why the comparison of costs of compliance with the EU
Directive targets in a study by the EEA should be questioned. The emphasis there was on costs born by
compliance schemes. However, different Member States effectively require compliance schemes to
cover a varying scope of the total costs of compliance. In some schemes, obligated companies pay for
all packaging recovery, in others, they pay only to stimulate, at the margin, the additional packaging
collection and reprocessing needed to meet a given target.
235 EPA (2008) National Waste Report Report 2007, Section 5, Wexford: EPA.
International Review of Waste Policy: Annexes