Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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245. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment further to Parliamentary Question No. 215 of 26 September 2018 (details supplied), if rigid plastics that are coloured black are recycled following kerbside collection in view of the difficulties for sorting machines identifying black plastics in the sorting process and in circumstances in which they are not generally recycled following collection; if advice to the public on avoiding the purchase of such material will be updated; the actions he plans to take to prevent such material entering the waste stream; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [40156/18]

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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The processing of rigid plastics, including separation and segregation, continues to improve across the industry.

More recently, major investment in advanced optical separators by significant processors has improved the separation of black rigid plastics enhancing the potential for ultimate recycling of this material.

The processing industry is also actively collaborating with the manufacturers of rigid black plastics to ensure that these materials are increasingly visible to the available optical technologies.

In some circumstances where processing capability is incomplete, rigid black plastics may pass through the processing plants, however in these situations the material is more likely to be recovered rather than disposed of.

While the primary objective is to prevent waste arising in line with the waste hierarchy, the on-going advice, with regard to rigid black plastic waste, is to segregate and place in the recycling bin in accordance with Recycling list Ireland (www.recylinglistireand.ie).

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 to a wide variety of communities.