Billy Timmins (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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Question 537: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government his plans to implement a scheme in supermarkets whereby after paying for their goods customers can take them out of the cartons, containers or packaging and leave them in an area of the supermarket for the supermarket to dispose of; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3169/06]

Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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Ireland has enjoyed considerable success in recent years in meeting targets for the recovery and recycling of packaging waste. Data from the Environmental Protection Agency show that the 25% target for 2001 set under directive 94/62/EC on packaging and packaging waste was achieved and also that, with 56% recovery of packaging waste in 2004, Ireland has exceeded the 2005 recovery target of 50% set under the directive. The comparable figure for 1998 was 14%. Under the Waste Management (Packaging) Regulations 2003, as amended, all producers participating in the placing of packaging on the Irish market, must segregate the packaging waste arising on their own premises into specified waste streams and have it collected for recycling by authorised recovery operators. Major producers, those who have an annual turnover in excess of €1 million and who place more than 25 tonnes of packaging on the Irish market, have additional responsibilities with regard to the recovery of packaging waste from their customers.

Major producers have the option of either complying directly with their producer responsibility obligations, that is, self-compliance or alternatively, getting an exemption from those requirements by becoming a member of a packaging waste compliance scheme. Major producers, who opt to self-comply with the regulations, are required, inter alia, to accept from any person, free of charge, at each premises from which packaging, packaging materials or packaged products is supplied, packaging waste of a type or brand supplied by that major producer and adequate facilities must be provided by that major producer at each of the relevant premises for the acceptance, segregation and storage of such packaging waste from customers. A further obligation on self-compliers includes the placement of a sign at each entrance to each premises from which packaging, packaging materials or packaged products is supplied, informing the public that packaging waste of a type or brand supplied by that major producer will be accepted free of charge at that premises for the purposes of recovery.

Repak Limited, established by Irish industry in 1997 to promote, co-ordinate and finance the collection and recovery of packaging waste with a view to achieving Ireland's packaging waste recovery and recycling targets under the packaging waste directive, is the sole approved compliance scheme for the recovery of packaging waste in Ireland. Repak membership income is used to subsidise the collection of packaging waste from both the household and commercial sectors. In the household sector, subsidy is provided towards the collection of packaging waste from bring banks and civic amenity recycling centres, as well as segregated kerbside collection of packaging waste from households.

The regulations exempt major producers who are participating in the Repak scheme from having to take-back packaging waste from consumers. This exemption is the main incentive to join the collective scheme and thereby contribute to the funding of recycling activities. Removal of the exemption would be likely to undermine the scheme and, given that the existing regulatory arrangements are achieving the desired result concerning meeting the directive's recovery and recycling targets, such a measure is not under consideration.