Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 29 June 2021

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine

Collection and Recycling of Farm Plastics: Discussion

Mr. Paul McDonald:

Certainly the target set for the IFFPG is 70% and it has exceeded that. As I was saying earlier on, with this rolling-on of the farmers not presenting this for collection on an annual basis, and if that is what was done, maybe that figure is a little bit off. If there is a gap there, we would like to establish where that problem is. From what has come out in the most recent meeting today and the previous meeting, the nub of the problem seems to be a portion of this plastic has been collected over the last number of years by private contractors who, because of the market fluctuations, are now not in a position to deal with that. There may be an issue there. The figure of somewhere between 10,000 and 12,000 tonnes of this material lying around the country has come out. That could well present an environmental threat, yes.