Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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Question 108: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance the amount of waste in weight generated by his Department in 2005, 2006 and to date in 2007 in tabular readable form. [32694/07]

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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Question 109: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance the percentage of waste in 2005, 2006 and to date in 2007 that was recycled in tabular readable form. [32709/07]

Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 108 and 109 together.

Other than confidential waste, the weight of general and recyclable waste generated by my Department is not recorded. Since there are different methods of disposing of waste it is not possible to quantify recycled waste as a percentage of all waste. Charges for general waste are based on bulk bin loads, for recyclable waste on the number of bags and for confidential waste on weight.

However, for information, I have set out in the following tables the amounts of the different types of waste disposed of by my Department in the last three years.

The waste generated in my Department's principal offices in Upper Merrion Street is collected by Dublin City Council. For the calendar year 2005 and for the first six months of 2006 this consisted of four 1100 litre bins collected five times per week. Since July 2006 this has been reduced to four 1100 litre bins collected three times per week.

The recycled waste and cardboard waste is also collected by Dublin City Council. Recycle bags and cardboard labels are purchased in bulk for this waste and distributed to all of the Department's buildings in Dublin. The following table sets out the quantities purchased over the three year period.

Confidential waste is collected separately and is sent for shredding and recycling. The weight of confidential waste material collected over the period in question is as follows:

General waste and recyclable waste from the Department's office in Tullamore, Co. Offaly, which opened in July 2006, is collected on alternate weeks. Four 1100 litre bins for recyclable waste and two 1100 litre bins for general waste are used for this purpose.