Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
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Ireland’s infrastructure does not allow it to manage all of the waste material generated for recycling and there is a reliance on exports to manage the waste we produce. Irish recyclers are competing for waste materials, including polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic, in an open market.

There are recycling facilities for PET plastic in Ireland. While my Department does not have the power to direct waste to a particular facility or to keep it within Ireland for recycling, there are funding measures in place to encourage domestic recycling and discourage the export of waste for recycling.

Repak, the national packaging Extended Producer Responsibility scheme, has a funding system in place which promotes the proximity principle and ensures that maximum funding is available to operators who collect, separate and reprocess PET plastics in Ireland:

- For household collections, an additional reprocessing subsidy was introduced in 2020 and is only available to plastic reprocessors with operations in Ireland. In 2022 this subsidy increased from €35/tonne to €50/tonne.

- For commercial collections, there is a stepped system in place with the highest subsidy payable where material is recycled in Ireland, mid-range funding where material is recycled in EU/UK, and a reduced subsidy for material sent outside Europe.

The Waste Action Plan for a Circular Economy sets out a roadmap for the introduction of a Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) for PET plastic bottles and aluminium cans. The Scheme will be launched later this year and will increase the quantity of those materials being collected for recycling. Open tendering processes will be used to source operators for the separate collection, sorting and recycling of this material and DRS will adopt green procurement principles to ensure those services are provided with minimal impact on the environment.