Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

On the variable charge, I would suggest that there will be an opening for that point to be made in the consultation process that will be coming up.

On glass, many of the submissions received in the first round of public consultation on the introduction of the DRS called for glass to be included. The DRS facilitates a high rate of recyclability because the material collected in it is generally not contaminated. Ireland, through its bring bank collection system, already achieves a high rate of glass recycling. The most recent statistics show that we are achieving a rate of 82%. This well exceeds the EU target for 2030 of 75%. Our focus for glass should turn to reuse as this is further up the waste hierarchy, rather than recycling. Therefore, some form of DRS for glass which facilitates reuse rather than recycling may be looked at in the future. It is a question of the best approach to take and reuse is always better than recycling. We are doing so well on glass in Ireland that this is the area we want to look at for now in terms of glass. However, there are opportunities for other avenues to carry out recycling in the future as well.