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

available. There are strong reasons to believe, however, that the economic downturn
will have affected the quantity of waste generated, probably in both 2008 and 2009.
ESRI forecasts a decline in GDP of 10% at market prices for 2009 and a further
decline of 1.9% in 2010. 1032 It would be expected that this effect, with an impact on
wages, would lead to a reduction in the overall quantity of municipal waste, though
the balance across the household and non-household sectors might be difficult to
estimate. We would assume that the response on the household waste side would be
less dramatic than on the commercial side, partly reflecting a reversing of the
apparent effects in the past in terms of growth.
We have estimated that household waste and commercial waste fell by 1% and 3%,
respectively, in 2008, 1033 and that growth rates will be -3% and -7% for household
and commercial waste in 2009, and -1% and -2% for household and commercial
waste in 2010. This would lead to a net fall of 8% in municipal waste by 2010 relative
to 2007 figures. 1034
The performance in respect of recycling of paper and card, and of organics, will be
crucial if Ireland is to meet the 2010 Landfill Directive targets. The recycling of paper
and card will have been stimulated by rising prices for secondary fibre in the first half
of 2008 but it will have suffered in the second half of 2008. Prices are recovering
again, so that it might be expected that by the end of 2009, capture rates (as a
percentage of total paper and card) might not be so different from 2007 levels
(having increased in previous years). We have projected that the capture rate reaches
55% in 2010, a slight increase from 2007 levels, but the same level as the EPA
reports for 2006, and on track with the target set in the National Biodegradable
Waste Strategy.
The situation regarding the organic waste stream then becomes crucial. Captures
were shy of 9% in 2007, but the National Biodegradable Waste Strategy sets a target
of 25% by 2010. A 25% capture rate would imply organic waste treatment of around
210,000 tonnes in 2010, up from 78,617 tonnes in 2007. This seems possible,
given the ongoing roll-out of collections for organic waste (‘the brown bin’) and given
also the potential biowaste treatment capacity in the country at the time of writing,
although anecdotal evidence suggests this might be happening more slowly than had
hitherto been the case. There is no room for complacency, and the key hurdle might
appear to be the licensing and permitting of biowaste treatment capacity. Any delays
could have significant implications for the overall approach, although as mentioned
above, some are viewing spare capacity at rendering plants as a possible solution,
possibly for an interim period.
1032 ESRI (2009).
1033 Although the economy was already in decline, CSO reports that net migration was still positive, with
population increasing by some 80,000 over the year.
1034 Recent UK figures, where the effect on GDP has been less dramatic than in Ireland, seem to
suggest that some local authorities will report drops in municipal waste – which is defined more
narrowly in the UK than in Ireland, and relates mostly to household waste – of as much as 10% from
2008 to 2009. Our estimates may well be conservative (i.e. the extent of the decline may be much
greater than we are predicting).
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