Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

In 2020, 317,000 tonnes of plastic were generated in Ireland, of which 93,000 tonnes, less than 30%, were recycled. As somebody who cares about the environment and recognises that 70% of all the marine litter in the European Union is accounted for by only ten of the most commonly found single-use plastic items, I can really appreciate where this Bill is coming from.

The last time we took action on banning plastics, which was about a year ago, it was to ban all plastic cutlery. Voilà, I have here exhibit A. The little plastic fork I hold in my hand is sold in this House along with fruit. I thought we had banned plastic cutlery. A lot of stuff goes under the radar. I am not the big police chief of plastic but I am passionately concerned that we produce and use far too much of it. My party welcomed this Bill with great excitement. We thought it was great to have a circular economy Bill and wanted to see what it would do in terms of the environment. However, it does not tackle the real polluters, namely, the fossil fuel and plastic industries which make and produce plastics and make the greatest profits from them. That is a real shame. It is a habit the Green Party, in particular, is in danger of repeating.

Aside from the interlinked issue of the climate crisis, I can think of no more important issue that we could deal with. It goes to the heart of dealing with our environmental crisis, but also with how we deal with the planet's finite resources, which are being exploited and overused in a massive way. The way we constantly produce, reproduce and push economies to have more and more products is not sustainable. As the basis of the capitalist system under which we live, we will have to think about that system and ways of challenging it. For this reason, in this modern capitalist society where there is overfishing, exploitation of marine life, depletion of natural resources and minerals, overuse of fresh water, disruption to the global hydrological cycle, burning of carbon and fossil fuels regardless of the consequences, and the destruction of rare earth minerals, forestry, etc., we need a strong and robust Bill that addresses all of that. Such a Bill would tackle the planned obsolescence inherent in many of the global production and supply networks. It would fund and enshrine the right to repair and ban the use of damaging chemicals in production. It would support locally-grown and healthy food production. It would regulate, ban and restrict the exploitation of our finite resources. To do that in a concrete way or to even begin the process to build or aspire to a genuine circular economy is, in fact, to challenge the basis of production under the type of capitalist economy we have because the whole basis of production in this economy is the unrestrained use of our natural resources with no regard to natural limits or the consequences of that production or the commodification of every possible resource, such as water, clean air, decent food and others that are essential for life.

"Externalities" is a word used by economists to categorise the costs of and damage done by this model of production - the pollution, despoliation and overuse and depletion of natural gifts - but these are not unfortunate asides or unforeseen consequences. They are essential to production for profit and at the heart of how it takes place. If externalities were truly costed and paid for by the oil, gas, plastics and petrochemical industries, all those industries would be bankrupted by now. The system effectively privatises profit and socialises environmental destruction.

The idea of a circular economy is at the centre of any sane response to the multiple environmental crises we face. As with every policy that seeks to address a crisis or an aspect of capitalism, it is often mangled from the original concept of the system itself to being co-opted into the idea of extracting maximum financial reward from any product, activity or resource. The core idea is to have an economy that moves away from the model of take, make and throw away towards a model of create, repair and reuse more where we carefully use the gifts that nature has given society and from which society benefits. It should not be an economy for the profit of a tiny minority. We should move away from a system based, as Rachel Carson says, on "the gods of profit and production."

Our problem with this Bill is that it does not deliver on its goal. No legislation on its own can do so because it would challenge the fabric of capitalist production. The Bill does not have an aspiration in that direction. In its 93 sections, what consumes the largest space? Is it banning single-use plastics such as the fork I used in exhibit A, fining producers or covering a greater range of products that those producers will be held responsible for at the end of the life of those products? No. Is it banning harmful chemicals used in creating packaging, banning pesticides or perhaps starting to look at how the privatisation of waste management has damaged the goals of reducing waste and safeguarding the environment? No. The largest block of this Bill is concerned with the use of CCTV cameras by local authorities and recordings made by officials using mobile phones. I note the frustration expressed by all the Deputies who have been local authority councillors. I understand the issue of illegal dumping and fly-tipping is a big problem. For example, Dublin City Council spends on average €1 million a year cleaning up after fly-tipping on the streets, while the companies that were privatised and make vast profits from bin charges contribute nothing to the project of dealing with fly-tipping. Much of the fly-tipping happens because people, particularly in poorer communities, cannot afford the ever-increasing cost of bin charges.

To be honest, CCTV is all over my estate, for example, but nobody looks at it because staffing levels in the local authority have been cut back. The staffing levels in the Garda station are otherwise affected. Nobody watches the CCTV coverage. I do not know about rural Clare or east Galway, but that is certainly the case in big cities such as Dublin and I imagine it is the same in Limerick, Cork and Waterford.

Nobody in the local authorities actually watches this stuff. The chunk of the Bill concerned with this is very worrying. It is disturbing, to say the least.

We face widespread pollution from industrial sources that are damaging our rivers and urban and rural areas. We have crises in water quality and water management. We have a boom in mining activity triggered by a rush for certain scarce and rare minerals, resulting in fears over long-term damage to our watercourses. The campaign against mining in Ireland has issued the statistic that the global gold industry has been the driver of a mining rush in Ireland to the extent that Ireland, north and south, has been identified as a hotspot for the European mining boom. To date, 27% of the south of Ireland and 25% of the North of Ireland have been concessioned for mineral prospecting licences. Most of the activity is in areas such as the Sperrins in County Tyrone. Derry, Donegal, Connemara and rural communities in Wicklow have all been affected. For some of our areas of pristine beauty, we have issued hundreds of mining licences to Canadian and other global corporations.

Purchasing a Bill on the circular economy and doling out licences for mining to the extent in question all over the country suggests a conflict of interest. I am struck by the similarity with the climate action legislation. It was much-anticipated legislation that attempted to address a key environmental crisis but suffered from vague language and multiple get-out clauses in doing so. In this Bill, we see the repeated use of the word "may". We may do this and we do may that. There are many strategies and plans, and there are roadmaps to be constructed at a later stage. Very little use is made of the State's ability to regulate and ban harmful activities. While we welcome the efforts to address the single-use plastic issue, it has to be said that the time taken and the various loopholes that allow for the continued production of single-use plastic in the coming years are very worrying. It has been pretty clear that alternatives to almost all the products discussed here are possible, apart from where there is a relatively small need in medical and some specialised cases.

Given what we now know, our marine environment is drowning in plastic. Some 70% of all marine litter comes from the ten most commonly found single-use plastics. In Ireland, we produce up to 80% more plastic packaging per head than the rest of Europe. We generate 27% more municipal waste than the European average. We should have seen stronger timelines and actions. While we welcome the banning of some single-use plastics, the associated timelines are worrying. While we can introduce amendments, the charge for disposable cups is not what is needed given the scale of the crisis. It smacks a little of the carbon tax in that the measure punishes the behaviour of people rather than the corporations and producers of the waste.

Regarding the lack of definite targets, the Bill states the Minister "may" introduce targets for a waste management plan, but it would have been preferable to see those targets in the legislation. Again, we will try to amend the legislation in this regard. Until we see a circular-economy strategy and programme, or the food waste prevention strategy, it is hard, if not impossible, to know how seriously to take this Bill. In short, I welcome the reference to the circular economy but am puzzled by the fact that the legislation seems to attach such little importance to that economy in the here and now.

I am alarmed by the plan to deal with food waste as one of the key policies having regard to Food Vision 2030, a policy that has correctly been labelled by farmers interested in sustainability as an expansion plan for Ireland to become a world leader in sustainable greenwashing, heavy on spin while thrashing the Paris Agreement obligation. A policy that embeds the model of dairy expansion and the creation of more markets abroad should not be mentioned in the same breath as food waste prevention or a circular economy Bill.

I fail to see how the circular economy Bill can be serious if it does not seek to address the disaster of municipal waste management. The privatisation of municipal waste management has been a disaster — a disaster for workers, the environment, householders and ultimately the local authorities, which are picking up the pieces and the tab for the private companies, all of which are registered offshore and make vast profits, while the cost to the ordinary household goes up and up and the fly-tipping increases all the time.

I want to comment on what is heralded as a key element, the extra charge of between 20 cent and €1 on disposable cups. It speaks to the common theme of how the Green Party, in particular, addresses environmental crises. The charge is a miniature version of the carbon tax, a policy based on the idea of changing the behaviour of people but allowing multiple loopholes and get-out causes regarding certain products. This highlights the corporate and systemic nature of the problem. The thinking is that we can keep manufacturing the products under certain circumstances but will charge people for using them. While drowning in a sea of plastic and choking all the species in the marine environment, we are dragging our feet on the banning of the manufacture of such damaging products. What timelines stretch to 2030 given the scale of the crisis now? We are to expect a deposit-and-return system for bottles later in the year, but this should also be in the legislation.

The mistaken belief is that the environmental crisis can be tackled by neoliberal measures that charge our behaviour out of existence, but only if it can happen and if aimed at individuals. The measures are never aimed at businesses and corporate entities that ultimately benefit from the production and manufacturing involved.

See this speech in context