Trevor Sargent (Dublin North, Green Party)

I am not sure if that reflects Fine Gael policy, but it is certainly not environmentally sustainable.

I welcome the Minister's commitment to a major change in Ireland's waste policies. Some achievements have been made by previous Governments but they do not go far enough. The Green Party's goal — and I am glad to hear Fine Gael repeating it here — is for a zero waste society. It is still a long-term target, but with this new Minister we are now moving in the right direction. The international review of waste management in Ireland will lay out the road map for the necessary changes. We have a long way to go. We have seen the success of recycling facilities introduced by local authorities over recent years. When Green Party councillors, including Deputy Gormley, were proposing the door-to-door collection of waste for recycling during the 1990s, they were ridiculed by their colleagues from other parties, including Fine Gael I am sorry to say. Now, the kerbside collection of recyclables is something people in many Irish towns look on as their right, as part of the normal running of a civilised society. Those, and they are still many, who do not yet have recycling collections are rightly annoyed at being left with a second-class service. No one doubts that it is the right thing to do, but it is time to go further than recycling; we need to prevent and minimise waste. The best instance of this so far in Ireland is the plastic bag tax, which has been widely heralded internationally. I am not sure if Deputy O'Dowd realises it, but I proposed that tax back in 1994 when Fine Gael and Labour were in power. Unfortunately, however, it was actually a Fianna Fáil-led Government that implemented the tax. That is the record from Fine Gael's point of view. As that party knows, the long-term guiding principle behind the Green Party's waste policy is the objective of zero waste. It is not an instant solution, but a long-term strategy for achieving long-term sustainability. The implementation of zero waste resource management systems are arguably amongst the most important steps needed to ensure our transition to a sustainable society, to prevent further environmental deterioration and damage to the earth's atmosphere and ecosystems. Zero waste confronts the whole idea of endless material consumption by assisting those who are locked into the system to challenge, in a positive way, their own behavioural patterns.

Within the zero waste model the community must maximize reuse, repair, recycling and composting. Industry, for its part, must redesign objects the community cannot reuse, repair, recycle or compost. Both industry and the community need to reduce wasteful practices like over-packaging and over-consumption. Government has to provide leadership and the appropriate fiscal and financial systems which reward waste elimination, reuse, repair, recycling and composting, while penalising the creation of unnecessary or difficult wastes. I hope Deputy Ring will take that on board. The potential rewards from the implementation of a zero waste model will include saving raw material resources, creation of employment, retention of wealth within local communities and within the country, and a reduction in the need for new landfill sites or the building of incinerators.

I took it upon myself to visit an area that was implementing the zero waste strategy, without incineration obviously, as incineration would be an impediment to a zero waste strategy.

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