Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent)
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I will follow up on that briefly. We focus a great deal on the consumer and the product - we all have images in our heads - but what about buildings? Something that is happening at EU level has to do with building regulations and changes in building practices as well as the question of embodied energy in terms of wood and construction. An issue we have seen in large-scale projects has been the question of how to ensure the use of recycled materials in buildings. This has been a concern. Related to that is the question of how to reconcile food safety with moving towards refillables. Each of us might have a bottle that we refill here or there, but what about moving back to a situation where food sellers are able to use materials that can be recycled?

I am a member of the Joint Committee on Disability Matters. It is important that the need of people with disabilities for certain kinds of flexible plastic materials be factored into however we do this. I think of that as being dual use rather than single use, in that it is used by a person for a purpose and in order to protect his or her disability.