Arthur Morgan (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Question 1103: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government the timeframe during which he will ensure that the State reduces the figures for waste consigned to landfill from 66% to 10%. [19970/07]

John Gormley (Dublin South East, Green Party)
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The Programme for Government contains a commitment to the setting of new ambitious waste management targets for maximum prevention, re-use, recycling and modern waste treatment to ensure that we match the best performance in the EU for recycling with the objective that only 10% of waste or less is consigned to landfill.

This will require significant further improvements in diverting municipal waste from landfill. So far national reliance on landfill has fallen from 91% in 1998 to 65% in 2005. The principal factors underpinning progress in diversion of waste from landfill have been the provision of financial support for bring banks and recycling centres, successful Producer Responsibility Initiatives in areas such as packaging waste and waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), the extension of segregated collections for dry recyclable material to larger numbers of households and awareness-raising through campaigns such as Race Against Waste.

A key factor in making further progress will be the successful implementation of the National Strategy on Biodegradable Waste, published in April 2006. In 2004, almost three quarters of municipal (household and commercial) waste sent to landfill was biodegradable. The Strategy sets out measures aimed at the separate collection, recovery and recycling of biodegradable waste with a view to achieving the progressive diversion of biodegradable municipal waste from landfill by 2016 to 35% of the amount of biodegradable municipal waste generated in the baseline year of 1995. Interim targets for the diversion of biodegradable municipal waste to 75% and 50% of baseline levels are to be achieved by 2010 and 2013 respectively.

The review of regional waste management plans provided for in the Programme for Government should also better equip Ireland to achieve these ambitious targets and ultimately to progress to a situation where a maximum of 10% of waste is consigned to landfill. My Department is carefully considering the form which this review of waste management planning should take. It is important that the review is properly structured so as to make a lasting contribution to the manner in which Ireland undertakes waste management planning and the achievement of international best practice in this area, while meeting challenging national objectives and EU requirements.