'Recycling' is ending up in the dump

Heinrich

I wonder will our "green" party lads have a comment on this debacle or will it die a death?

A number of Ireland's leading recycling companies are dumping significant amounts of waste from some of their facilities into landfill sites.

Waste management companies, including Oxigen, Thorntons, Panda and Greenstar, are all dumping up to 60 per cent of their waste from some of their facilities into rubbish dumps, according to the latest figures obtained from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Makes a mockery of our efforts going to bring centers and sorting our rubbish for the Green Bin when such a significant volume gets thrown into landfills! Grren my hat, we play at being green when there is a terrible reality on how we are environmentally unfriendly.

Dying to hear some comments from Gormley!

leeroybrown

I'd say that I'm slightly surprised the dumped percentage is as low as 60%. If commercial waste management companies are doing the recycling it's in their financial interest to comply with the minimum regulatory requirements. The obvious things to do are to use predominately automated sorting (cheaper but a lot less thorough) and to specifically target waste products that they can sell for profit.

In cases where people move over to a 'cheaper' (until the council/corporation equivalent closes) refuse provider this is probably where the discount is coming from.

The only way to fix this is to make the legislation governing waste management a lot clearer and tighter so that the EPA can actually do something about it.

Heinrich

leeroybrown wrote:

The only way to fix this is to make the legislation governing waste management a lot clearer and tighter so that the EPA can actually do something about it.

That would be Gormley's job...:rolleyes:

mike65

We have a forum for this sort of chat.

Mike.

Heinrich

mike65 wrote:

We have a forum for this sort of chat.

Mike.

Really? I would imagine that this is very much a political issue and dear to the hearts of our esteemed Green Ministers - however...

Noelie

The way people recycle probably has a lot to do with it also. Im my estate we use Greenstar, people always putting things they shouldn't into the recycle bin, like glass. they also put all the recyclables into a plastic bag and just through it all into the bin. I think a lot of people have to be though how to recycle properly.

I was at one of the recycle centre's and was shocked at how people just don't follow instructions, putting all different glass in the one bin, propable because it was closer. putting plastic packaging into the Plastic bottle bin and so on.

Akrasia

Noelie wrote:

The way people recycle probably has a lot to do with it also. Im my estate we use Greenstar, people always putting things they shouldn't into the recycle bin, like glass. they also put all the recyclables into a plastic bag and just through it all into the bin. I think a lot of people have to be though how to recycle properly.

I was at one of the recycle centre's and was shocked at how people just don't follow instructions, putting all different glass in the one bin, propable because it was closer. putting plastic packaging into the Plastic bottle bin and so on.

Yeah, there are a lot of people who don't give a ****e or simply don't understand.

I think we could make recycling much easier if the government took some steps to encourage responsible recycling. A simple and extremely effective measure would be to put a refundable tax on glass bottles like what happens in continental europe.
(something like 20 cent a bottle that is fully refunded when the empty glass is returned to an automated bring center)

lostexpectation

hardly gormleys fault, but the one thing he did do in relation to this was revoke the planned compulsory incineration of waste due to go to landfilll

or something like that I don't know hoe to explain it right now.

heyjude

lostexpectation wrote:

hardly gormleys fault, but the one thing he did do in relation to this was revoke the planned compulsory incineration of waste due to go to landfilll[/I]

Pure NIMBY-ism, they were planning an incinerator in his constituency, so he had a choice - (a)allow the planned compulsory incineration of waste(much of it in his constituency) or (b) revoke the planned compulsory incineration of waste and have the same rubbish dumped in a landill in somebody else's constituency instead.

Difficult choice eh ?

Maybe if the government(:rolleyes: ) introduced a policy that all waste must be dealt with in the county in which it is produced, then things would be different and Dublin would have the choice of incineration or finding other sites within the county to dispose of its rubbish.

He can claim the latest decision is greener(though its hard to see how piling rubbish in a hole in the ground is fundamentally green), but the bottom line is that he wouldn't have been so quick to reach the decision if there was only one incinerator and it was hundreds of miles from his home.

gerky

Whatever Gormley does some people aren't going to be happy,usually in these kind of treads its either people who don't want the greens in government or consider them to have sold out.
And before people start at me I don't fully agree with the way he's going about things,I think he needs to move faster on improving the country's environment.
But in a lot of cases these treads are started for the wrong reasons or maybe its just me thinks that.

lostexpectation

heyjude wrote:

Pure NIMBY-ism, they were planning an incinerator in his constituency, so he had a choice - (a)allow the planned compulsory incineration of waste(much of it in his constituency) or (b) revoke the planned compulsory incineration of waste and have the same rubbish dumped in a landill in somebody else's constituency instead.

Difficult choice eh ?

Maybe if the government(:rolleyes: ) introduced a policy that all waste must be dealt with in the county in which it is produced, then things would be different and Dublin would have the choice of incineration or finding other sites within the county to dispose of its rubbish.

He can claim the latest decision is greener(though its hard to see how piling rubbish in a hole in the ground is fundamentally green), but the bottom line is that he wouldn't have been so quick to reach the decision if there was only one incinerator and it was hundreds of miles from his home.

I think this incinerator would have to taken waste fro other areas to justify its size, the levy decisions affect all of ireland more then nimbysim, he is a green politician btw

Archeron

I'm quite confused by this. Waste ends up in landfill and people get their knickers in a twist? Why? Of course waste ends up in landfill, we dont have any alternative options for dealing with waste as of yet.

Looking at Thorntons for example, 40 off percent is recycled, THAT material is not consigned to landfill, it is recycled and re-used, so whats the problem? If a company collect significant amounts of non-recoverable municipal waste, then what exactly are they supposed to do with it? Anyone who proposes alternatives (such as incineration) gets a slap of a big bag of Nimbyism.

I used to work in one of the companies mentioned in the OP, and I can say with my hand on my heart that the development of recycling and segregation techniques and machinery is a sight to behold. The company I worked for had some really advanced ways of reducing how much waste goes to landfill, and utilized it at every possible opportunity.

Keeping in mind that there are massive tonnage charges for materials going to landfill, as opposed to recycling the materials which can actually generate revenue for a company, its not as if companies are slyly landfilling stuff to try and cut corners and costs, because it is NOT in their interests to do that. (I realize that there are some sly sh*ts out there shipping it abroad and fly tipping and such, but I am talking of the reputable waste management companies).

OK, so recycling levels are not quite where we want them, but a lot of good work is being done by many of the companies involved, and I hate when I read articles like this that could actually undo some of the good will of people who are actually making an effort and making a difference. When I was young, and all this was just fields, EVERYTHING went into the waste bin, paper, glass, cardboard, plastic, everything. Thanks be to jebus those days have passed.

Of course, maybe we could keep everybody happy by just shipping our waste out the far east and let them deal with it. We aint happy with landfill, we dont want incinerators, so lets just keep paying top dollar to let someone else deal with our poor waste management issues.

lostexpectation

the article suggest that recyclable waste is not recycled, that people put stuff into the companies recycling bins thinking its going to be recycled but its not

...why doesn't thortons or somebody build a glass (and plastics) recycling plant.

Archeron

lostexpectation wrote:

the article suggest that recyclable waste is not recycled, that people put stuff into the companies recycling bins thinking its going to be recycled but its not

...why doesn't thortons or somebody build a glass (and plastics) recycling plant.

Maybe I'm being pedantic, but the wording below:

"A number of Ireland's leading recycling companies are dumping significant amounts of waste from some of their facilities into landfill sites.
Waste management companies, including Oxigen, Thorntons, Panda and Greenstar, are all dumping up to 60 per cent of their waste from some of their facilities into rubbish dumps, according to the latest figures obtained from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)."

suggests to me that its waste thats going to landfill. A bale of solid cardboard, or aluminium or any recyclable material is not waste, its potential income. The only thing I ever referred as waste (when I worked there) was mixed general domestic rubbish. That is the material that goes to landfill.
The word facility, I would generally take to mean a waste transfer station. This is where waste and recyclables go to be sorted and seperated. What can be recycled goes from there to the various places for reuse, while the non recyclable waste (the really horrible stuff, like domestic rubbish and such) gets baled and goes to landfill.

As for why the waste companies dont build glass recycling centres, its mainly because of the costs involved. There are already some companies out there who recycle glass and who have the infrastructure in place to do it. Where possible, waste compaies liase with those glass recyclers to recycle as much as possible, but its not always feasible to do that; from both a costs and logistics point of view.
In relation to plastics, at the time that I worked in this, some types of plastic were seperated and recycled (mostly pallet wrap) and customer were actually encouraged to use recycling bins or on site balers for this. There are so many different types of plastic in use, that for the moment it is impossible to recycle them all. However, in recent years, plastic bottles and plastic milk containers have been added to the "recyclable" list, so it is still heading in the right direction.

Even though some of these companies do great work in recycling, we must remember that they are private companies who are there to make money, so we cannot expect them to plough millions into providing a way to recycle everything we as consumers use. It would probably be more sensible for us as consumers and business owners to be more select and careful in our own purchasing and handling of waste or recyclables to ensure that what we are disposing of is materials that can be recycled with the technologies currently available, and that we have proper waste management plans in place.

(as a side note, Killeen road is not even in Dundalk, its in Ballyfermot. For an article providing such hard hitting information, they seem to have made a very stupid factual error).

lostexpectation

you're being highly pedantic!

BendiBus

lostexpectation wrote:

you're being highly pedantic!

while simultaneously being highly informative!

Archeron

lostexpectation wrote:

you're being highly pedantic!

Sorry to come across like that, but the thing is, I feel the headline of that article could just as easily be "Recyclable materials recovery rate 90%+ in major recycling companies!!"
The waste is being landfilled, but it doesnt even ask the question of how much of their incoming material even CAN be recycled, and how much of it is regarded as waste and HAS to be landfilled. I suppose bad news sells better, and this article just irks me because the people have Ireland have completely turned around 100% in recent years regarding our attitude to waste. Where recycling at home or in work used be regarded as an oddity, now its expected, and every home and business I know has seperate bins for recycling.
Misleading articles like this can make people believe their good work is in vain, and that would only lead us back to the days when 100% of EVERYTHING went to landfill, not just 100% of waste material.