Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

If I was Virgil or whoever it was I would be able to do so, but sadly it has been a long time since I was able to do that.

I thank the Deputy for raising this matter. I recently commissioned a study to establish whether a deposit-and-return scheme would be a cost-effective measure in terms of achieving the goal on which we all agree, namely, reducing the levels of plastic pollution and improving our recycling targets. I am very keen to see an effective response to the problem of plastic use in Ireland. The figures suggest that use of plastic in packaging in Ireland is nearly 80% higher than in other European countries. The scale presents us with a problem. We need to think not only of recovery schemes, but also reduction schemes. As the Deputy probably knows, one of the first things I did was introduce a ban on the use of single-use plastics across the public service. That has come into effect immediately within Departments and will be rolled out across the public service in March. This will prevent any further acquisition of single-use plastics, although current stocks will continue to run down.

The difficulty with the deposit-and-return scheme was outlined by my predecessor. We have a kerbside collection scheme which is meeting pretty high targets, achieving approximately 70% recovery of plastic bottles. We have agreed to a higher target of 90%. We need to see if this is a cost-effective measure before we make it a legal obligation. The Deputy rightly cites public opinion as an important indicator of the direction of policy thinking. However, introducing a legal obligation would give rise to the cost implications and so on of legal enforcement and actions against businesses. I am conscious that many small businesses informed the committee that the cost of this would be very significant.

The point my predecessor, Deputy Naughten, made is also valid in that if one of the more valuable recovery streams is taken out of the curbside collection, namely, plastic bottles, there is the risk that an additional cost on households would be created and we would see an increase in charges for households. To decide in a robust way based on evidence, I have taken the step of commissioning work on this so that we can establish, first, if it is cost effective and, second, how we should design it. That invitation to tender has been published and is available if the Deputy is interested in seeing it.

We need to bear in mind also that we have very ambitious recycling targets for plastic generally. We are at less than 35% across the entire plastic packaging spectrum. We need to get to 50% by 2025 and 55% by 2030. There are a number of things we need to consider to make that a reality. There is far too much mixed materials going into the plastic packaging stream that cannot be recycled and we need to address that. I am looking at how we can improve the current producer obligation scheme to ensure there is less plastic going into the waste stream and that what does go in is more recyclable. I am looking through the supply chain to come up with initiatives that would be cost effective but I have by no means ruled out the deposit return scheme.

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