Lynn Boylan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit go dtí an Teach. We all know, and I have discussed previously with the Minister of State, that using raw materials unsustainably is the current model and that we need to overhaul our economic model from one that is based on "take, make, waste" to one that is circular. "Reduce, reuse, recycle" is probably the idea that is most commonly associated with the circular economy. The Minister of State will be aware we introduced, initially as an amendment to the Circular Economy and Miscellaneous Provisions Act but now as a stand-alone Bill, a proposal to ban companies dumping brand-new, unused products and prevent that material from entering the waste stream.

Today, however, I am focusing on products that are reusable even though they have entered the waste stream. According to the old saying, one person's trash is another person's treasure, and my dad cannot walk past a skip without having a look into it and seeing what is there. We need a more structured and formal system. Circular economy social enterprises have popped up. One of them, Camara, deals with computers, and there is also Liberty Recycling. Even the civic amenity review document cites the example of an organisation that goes into those civic amenities, takes the knobs and dials from electrical appliances and uploads information about them online, where people can access it. If someone needs, say, a dial for their oven that has gone out of production, they can go to the website and find a replacement. Of course, that makes absolute sense and it is an excellent initiative, and many similar enterprises also salvage reusable items from the waste stream.

I understand, however, that barriers prevent civic amenity operators from allowing such social enterprises salvage from their waste. The first issue relates to the provision of waste licences granted by the Environmental Protection Agency. Often, it precludes the operators from licensed waste facilities from allowing people to salvage from the waste even when they would like to. There could be a perfectly functional bike a child has grown out of or there might be furniture considered outdated to someone's taste that a waste disposal company is licence-bound not to pass on. The phrase used in many of the licences is that scavenging shall not be permitted at the facility. Even that language is outdated and I think the Minister of State will agree it comes from a different era. The word "scavenging" conjures images such as vermin or vultures coming in. We need a structured, formalised type of salvaging of useful items that does not have the same connotations, and it is an activity we should encourage. One-off organisations such as the Ballymun Rediscovery Centre show we can give a new lease of life to furniture, clothes and bicycles. The EPA-licensed site report on waste enforcement cites scavenging permitted on site as one area of non-compliance with the licence. In an era when we are more urgently trying to make our economy more circular, perhaps we need to take a second look at the blanket bans on salvaging.

The second issue has to do with the end-of-waste criteria. The end-of-waste framework holds that once an item enters the system of EPA-licensed facilities, when it is dropped off at a site or collected in a skip, that waste cannot leave the system without being granted an end-of-waste application. I understand we need to have safeguards and we do not want mica blocks ending up back on the market, but end-of-waste decisions are relatively rare in this country.

Senator Lynn Boylan:I think only three were completed in 2022. Will the Minister of State give me an update on the end-of-waste decisions and whether that will be rolled out more formally? We do not know the exact scale but we know certain items going into the waste stream could be reused or given a new life. I would like to hear the Minister of State's thoughts and views on the subject.