Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 19 April 2023
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Recycling Farm Plastics: Discussion
Mr. Liam Moloney:
We aspire to collect as much plastic as possible from as many farmers as possible in a given year. As a minimum, we must exceed the 70% recycling rate, which is a very high recycling target for a plastic waste stream. As the committee has heard, we are achieving a recycling rate of between 88% and 90% at the moment. That is exceptionally high. To put that in perspective, the national recycling rate for plastic packaging at the moment is, I think, in the region of 33% or 34% and there is a 50% target to be met by 2025, which is seen as onerous.