Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
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The issue faced by the scheme and the whole market is the change in the cost of recycling. There was a time this product had a value. It could be sold into the Chinese market and they would use it for something. The value of farm plastic reduced to the point where people had to pay to have it reprocessed. The economics of the scheme have changed and that means more money has to come into the scheme from producers and farmers to support collection and recycling of the product. There have been huge changes and that is why the scheme needs to be regularly reviewed, why the producer organisation only has a five-year term and why we are doing a mid-term review of where that organisation is. It is a difficult business to be in. Collecting farm plastic is not something you can make money from in the way you could in the past. It is not a valuable product to sell back into a recycling facility.