Mr. Kevin O'Donoghue:

Yes. There is much going on in that space. The important part is trying to decouple people's views of the circular economy as being related directly to waste. Our ambition in this regard is set out in the waste action plan, but we view the circular economy as a much broader engagement.

To address the Senator's specific point on recycled plastics, there is a worldwide shortage of rPET at the moment. It cannot be got, so companies are moving as quickly as they can, from a consumer perspective if nothing else, to try to utilise as much recycled material as possible. There has already been a great deal of movement in that regard in Ireland. There will be a bottle-to-bottle plant in Ireland soon. That will help, as will the deposit return scheme, DRS. The move away from materials that are difficult to recycle will be the greatest transition. That is where eco-modulation is already playing a role, and it will do more. In a very short period, we have seen changes to the colouring dyes that are used in black meat trays so that the trays can now be recycled and we have seen a change whereby soft plastics can now go into the recycling bin and be dealt with properly, which will have a significant impact in terms of the materials that are left at the end of the pipe for landfill or waste energy treatment. All of these measures will force a shift on the producers' side so that the materials they are putting onto the market will be easily recyclable, meaning they can be captured better and moved out more quickly.

We should acknowledge that we are not lacking in ambition in many of these areas. In 2008, 62% of material went to landfill. We were down to 14% in 2018 and we are well on target to meeting the EU's expectation of 10% by 2035, although we hope to get there much sooner than that. However, we must ensure that there is a level playing field for everyone. As Mr. Carberry mentioned, a pan-European solution to some of these issues would be a faster implementation model for us than trying to do something at an Irish level that would penalise only Irish producers of these materials.