Marie Sherlock (Labour)
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I thank the Minister of State for coming to the House. The results of the EPA report on the circular economy and waste statistics that were published last week very much threw into sharp light just how much needs to be done with regard to what can be recycled and what is being recycled in Ireland. In fact, the report shows that Ireland is going backwards, not forwards, with regard to recycling. This is particularly so when we see our recycling rates have remained unchanged at 41%, our packaging recycling is going down rather than getting better and, ultimately, just 28% of plastic packaging generated in Ireland was recycled in 2021.

For some time now, a message went out that Ireland was outperforming every other EU member state in recycling. The barefaced reality is actually very different. Ireland has an enormous amount of work to do to improve what it is doing, especially because mandatory targets are coming down the line in 2025. All this comes at a time when we need to encourage households and promote to them about consuming differently, consuming less and reusing what is around them. Yet, we are seeing the path of consumption is going upwards and is not flatlining. Therefore, there needs to be very serious consideration of the whole area of waste management in this country. I have no doubt the Minister of State will tell me about all the great work the Government is doing with the brown bins and the regulatory reviews that are ongoing or have been promised in this whole area.

There is a key issue here. An initiative was announced this morning with regard to brown bins that will be another cost to people. We have to ask about the incentives here regarding the ultimate attitude towards waste in this country. This is at a time when people are really struggling with the cost of living. My big fear is that while initiatives on their own may be welcome, ultimately, they are tinkering around the edges and we are not coming to terms with the scale of what we need to do with recycling in this country. There needs to be a serious conversation about education, the cost of service, the availability of the services and, crucially, who and what is delivering the services.

We have a situation in this country where Dublin, unlike most other EU or European cities, has a privatised waste collection service, and the local authorities are then left to pick up the pieces with everything else. Dublin City Council spends almost €1 million per year collecting illegal dumping. There were 3,200 tonnes of illegally dumped waste in in Dublin city last year. That is the equivalent of more than 106,000 black bins annually. The communities in which I am based, in particular the north inner city, are fed up with illegal dumping. It is a scourge on their communities, but it is right across the country. The key issue here is not the focus on the collection of bins but our overall attitude to waste in this country.

We need to take very seriously the work done by councillors in Dublin City Council. I was one of them in 2019 and we passed a motion calling for the re-municipalisation of services. That led to the commissioning of a report by the Institute of Public Administration. There are a number of very stark facts in that report, along with other research that has been conducted by researchers, which highlight that Ireland does stand apart and that it has a fragmented and disjointed system with regard to waste management and waste collection. Ultimately, if we are to ever get to a place where we have a proper circular economy, where local authorities are not only charged with enforcement but are also able to execute work, which is the real issue here in that local authorities have one hand tied behind their backs with regard to what they can do in waste management, then we need to change the system.

I am asking what the Government is doing to review the whole system of waste management in this country. We believe a number of simple changes to the Waste Management Act could be made to change the current system of waste collection and competition for the market in Dublin and across the country. That is the starting point in working towards a system where local authorities can ultimately take proper, comprehensive control of waste management in Ireland.

Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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The latest report on waste statistics for 2021 from the EPA showed a concerning trend. To be honest, many people were disappointed because, as the Senator said, we would have assumed we were the best in class for packaging recycling because we were for a long time. The concerning trend showed that recycling rates did not keep pace with increasing levels of waste generation.

Before I read the script, which I am delivering on behalf of the Minister, Deputy Ryan, who, as the Senator will know, is at COP28, I must say that all my three children were members of the green schools reduce, reuse, recycle campaign when it started 25 years ago. The schools are the correct place to start as they do a fantastic job. From that perspective, that is why so many were disappointed when they saw those statistics last week.

The report shows that to meet our ambitious 2025 recycling targets for municipal waste, packaging waste and plastic packaging waste, we must prioritise recycling over energy recovery and landfill. The Government is taking a range of new actions to incentivise people and businesses to first reduce and then recycle their waste, such as allowing soft plastics in the household recycling bin and bringing in mandatory segregation for commercial waste. Notwithstanding this, we all need to redouble our efforts to tackle excessive production and consumption. As we are now heading into Christmas, we are all very conscious of the amount of waste packaging that will be produced as a result.

The plain fact is that the relentless production of packaging is swamping the gains we are making in recycling volumes. Across the board, the Government’s policy is to move towards a circular economy where things are reused or recycled as much as possible and where the generation of waste is minimised. However, achieving the full benefits of the circular economy needs more than action at the individual level. It needs the right mix of Government policy, new business models and new systems of production. We are working hard to implement these.

As the Senator will know, here at home, there have been key Government actions to reduce ways to boost recycling. Soft plastics can now be put in the household recycling bin, the segregation of commercial waste is now mandatory, packaging fees are being adjusted to reward better design for recycling, self-compliance is ending for packaging producers, a levy on waste recovery has been introduced along with a higher landfill levy to boost recycling, and there are a host of measures to reduce single-use plastics using levies and producer responsibility mechanisms.

Legislation will be introduced by the end of the year to ensure every household has access to a bio-waste brown bin collection service.I did not realise that not everyone had access to one. Where I live in County Waterford, we have had them many years. A new deposit return scheme, DRS, will begin in February 2024 for plastic bottles and aluminium cans. That will be a complete change of use for many people and it is very positive.

Policy and legislative measures introduced by the Government in recent years to incentivise people to reduce and recycle waste include the waste action plan for a circular economy, containing more than 200 measures; the circular economy strategy, which sets a course for Ireland to transition to a circular economy; the national food waste prevention roadmap; and the Circular Economy and Miscellaneous Provisions Act 2022.

Ireland is not alone in facing these challenges. The European Commission has initiated negotiations on a new packaging waste regulation that proposes new packaging waste generation targets for the first time.

In Ireland, with the exception of one or two municipal districts, local authorities have all but exited the household waste collection market. In most cases, they could not compete with the prices charged by private entrants. The obligation on local authorities to collect household waste is set out in the Waste Management Act 1996, as amended, and, in summary, provides that each local authority shall collect or arrange for collection.

I was struck by what the Senator said and I will speak about illegal dumping in the next part. It is the scourge of all our communities.

Marie Sherlock (Labour)
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I am supportive of all the initiatives the Minister of State outlined. However, a piece of the jigsaw is missing. We are talking to the people who want to do more, but there are people who feel they cannot do more, for a variety of reasons, or will not do more. This is not about the individual, rather, this is about the overall provision of services. At the moment, local authorities are cleaning up the mess left behind because we have such a fragmented system. The missing piece of the jigsaw has to be brought into the conversation. Ultimately, we need to look at how we are spending money in this area. The Minister of State rightly mentioned that local authorities cannot compete with the prices of some of the private operators that are frankly paying pittance to their workers. They are paying the minimum wage when there were good jobs in waste collection in local authorities. The key issue is that Dublin City Council has to spend extra money to clean up the mess left behind because of the chaotic fragmented system, particularly in Dublin but also in other parts of the country. The crucial point is that we cannot talk about the initiatives to individuals; rather, we need to look at the overall provision of services, and local government and local authorities is where that needs to be.

Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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The Senator hit the nail on the head when she said we are talking to those who want to do more but there are some people who do not want to do anything or very little. I think it starts in the schools with the green flag initiative. I was delighted when my local school, Portlaw National School, recently acquired its 12th green flag. Many generations of kids in the school have gone through this important initiative. Illegal dumping is a huge issue in Dublin, Waterford, Galway and everywhere else. It is a huge issue. It is very costly on the State and it is worrying.

There are no proposals to change the arrangements local authorities have. However, it is important we have the conversation and try to see what more we can do. It is hugely expensive for local authorities to deal with illegal dumping, whether it is urban or rural.