Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

One of the other issues that affects price of plastic is the EU rules and the minimum amount of recycled plastic that has to be used. For example, if a company is making plastic bottles, it has to use a certain minimum percentage, and those percentages are going up. What that is doing is forcing up the price of recycled plastic to the point where recycled plastic, for example, the plastic that the Deputy puts in his green bin in his kitchen, is now more valuable per tonne than virgin plastic that is produced. That is what the effect has been of changing the target. It is not always about subsidies and taxes; it can just be that there is a law saying that a certain product has to be used, which pushes up the price.

On export subsidies, I am not aware that we are subsidising people to export plastic. If the Deputy, perhaps outside of this Chamber, wants to tell me how that is happening, I will be interested to hear that, because I am not aware of it. Perhaps it is some kind of indirect subsidy. I am not sure.

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