Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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213. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the amount and proportion of plastic waste generated that is sold or diverted to incineration; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [38933/18]

Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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215. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment if recyclable plastics that are coloured black are actually recycled here; if not, the steps he is taking to address this issue, inform the public regarding same and to prevent such material from entering the waste stream; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [38935/18]

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 213 and 215 together.

National waste policy is predicated on and consistent with European Union waste policy, which has the waste hierarchy as its cornerstone. Under the waste hierarchy, the prevention, preparation for reuse, recycling and recovery of waste is preferred to the disposal or landfill of waste.

Every effort is made to ensure that waste which cannot be prevented, prepared for reuse or recycled is recovered (including through waste to energy) as opposed to being landfilled.

In line with the principles of the waste hierarchy,  collectors of municipal waste must implement and maintain a system for the collection of segregated dry recyclables, including plastic which is suitable for recycling. Where waste has been source segregated prior to collection, the collection permit further requires that the waste shall not be mixed with other waste types and shall be delivered to a suitable authorised facility. In this regard, the two waste to energy plants operating in Ireland which accept municipal waste may only accept residualmunicipal waste. However, contaminatedrecyclable plastic and plastic which is not currently suitable for recycling in Ireland and which ends up in the recycling bin are removed at Material Recovery Facilities and sent for energy recovery or landfill, as appropriate.

To supplement the above regulatory regime, the Government has funded a range of measures to support better recycling so that more plastic which is suitable for recycling is diverted from the residual bin, waste to energy plants and landfill, including:

- the development a national standardised list of items that can go into the recycling bin, including rigid plastic items, which is available at ;

- a public education campaign on the recycling list rolled out by the regional waste management authorities, comprising radio advertisements, social media, billboards/posters, etc., to promote the list; and,

- a ‘master recycling’ programme, also run by the regional waste management authorities, in partnership with environmental NGOs, to roll out 650 workshops across the country training recycling ambassadors to bring the recycling message and understanding to a wide variety of communities.

The list stipulates that rigid plastics, such as plastic drink bottles, plastic cleaning bottles or fruit and vegetable trays, regardless of their colour, may be placed in the recycling bin.

A new national municipal waste characterisation study which commenced in December 2016 will be completed shortly. Results from this study could inform future estimates on the amount of plastic in municipal waste which is going to waste to energy plants.

Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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214. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment if plastic waste generated here and sold or diverted to incineration can be counted in the measure of recycling rates; if he will seek assurances from a company (details supplied) that its reported rates of recycling do not include plastics sold or diverted to incineration; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [38934/18]

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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In accordance with the Waste Framework Directive the recovery of waste packaging includes a variety of waste processing operations including:- Recycling

- Incineration

- Solid Recovered Fuel (which replaces fossil fuels in cement kilns)

However, only materials recycled and not recovered can be counted as recycled either in Ireland or abroad.

The EU Packaging Directive sets targets for all packaging including a 22.5% recycling rate for plastic packaging.

Repak, operating under my approval, is a not for profit producer-funded compliance scheme tasked with helping Ireland achieve these targets.  Repak report quarterly to my Department and annually to me on their work and as mentioned above, only material that is recycled can be reported towards the attainment of recycling targets.  Repak charges fees to its members in accordance with the amount and type of packaging they place on the Irish market. These fees are used to subsidise the collection and recovery of waste packaging through registered recovery operators across Ireland

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is responsible for the collation and analysis of waste packaging data. The latest packaging statistics provided by the EPA to the European Commission in June 2018, indicate that 275,510 tonnes of plastic waste was generated in Ireland in 2016.  Of this 35.7% was recycled and 79.7% was either recycled or recovered.