Ireland is number 1 producer of plastic waste in Europe.

Tangatagamadda Chaddabinga Bonga Bungo

Ireland is the top producer of plastic waste in the European Union, according to the latest Eurostat figures.

China will no longer take our plastic. So we either have to burn it all, or start letting it pile up around us.
Maybe we could cordon off the county of Louth and just use it as the country's landfill to dump our rubbish in from now on? It would be the least missed county I'm sure.

Either way, this isn't good, and we really should do more as a country. Being top of the table of something like this is not something we can be proud of.

What can we do?

McMurphy

Gives a new meaning to the term 'Plastic Paddys' .

gandalf

We could recycle our own bloody waste rather than export it.

Arghus

As long as we beat the English at something.

cantdecide

I've been chucking mine into the sea. Seems to be the done thing these days.

Don't you just wish that Ireland could be a leading nation for environmental innovation? Now would be a good time.

riffmongous

You'll never beat the irish!

Seriously though a plastic bottle deposit charge would be a nice easy, proven place to start

Tangatagamadda Chaddabinga Bonga Bungo

Tangatagamadda Chaddabinga Bonga Bungo wrote: »

Ireland is the top producer of plastic waste in the European Union, according to the latest Eurostat figures.

China will no longer take our plastic. So we either have to burn it all, or start letting it piling up around us.
Maybe we could cordon off the county of Louth and just use it as the country's landfill to dump our rubbish in from now on? It would be the least missed county I'm sure.

Either way, this isn't good, and we really should do more as a country. Being top of the table of something like this is not something we can be proud of.

What can we do?

I recently discovered Barry's teabags aren't 100% biodegradable. They get sprayed in polypropylene to hold the bag together. I drink on average 3 cups of tea a day, so at the end of the year Ive left behind me nearly 1000 bits of plastic once the tea and bag have broken down. I found the thought a bit shocking to be honest. There's a campaign to get them to change it here. As a Barry's fan it pains me to say this, Lyons are 100% compostable.

To be honest, we really need to change our habits and supermarkets need to change theirs. Wrapping vegetables in plastic is such a waste of plastic and if you don't take most vegetables out once you get home they go off very quickly.

patmac

Well it’s per head of population and we produce more food for supermarkets than any other country (per head of population), and the food industry demands a high proportion of packaging for its products, especially here, so no surprise really.

gimli2112

Ah here it's only per individual, we're really going to have to knuckle down if we want to win the per country title

lisasimpson

We bought in a plastic bag charge it should have been the start of a change but we never capitalised on it.
A few small steps we could start with..in the fruit and veg section could we have paper bags instead of plastic when getting loose fruit and veg..also coffee shops and he amount of disposable coffee cups use..encourage people to bring their own reusuable travel cups.

Your Face

Does this mean we create more plastic waste or that we put more plastic forward for recycling?

spurious

riffmongous wrote:

Seriously though a plastic bottle deposit charge would be a nice easy, proven place to start

In Germany recently and there was not a plastic bottle to be seen. I think redemption gave 20c per bottle, possibly even 25c. The homeless guys were cleaning up - literally.

buried

I have to buy bottled water daily in those plastic containers from the shops because the water where I am is no longer trustworthy to drink. I hate doing it because I know I'm just adding to the plastic mess but I have to do it. I don't truss my supply in the taps. I ain't catchin clytospiridian again or whatever the f**k it was or still might be there. What I don't understand is, why can't I just keep two containers that I own, go to the shop, fill my containers to the volume or weight that I want from a larger container in the store and pay for that? That could be done with a whole heap of packaged foods and drink, from liquids to cereals. That's what should be done to help stop this plastic packaging problem.

Harry Palmr

Stop carrying coffee cups, or rather buy and carry a reusable one. Ditto bottled water, one of the great con jobs. Buy proper razors, if there is a choice of products buy whichever has the least plastic surrounding it. Make meals, don't buy them out of the frozen section.

whisky_galore

We're lazy and obsessed with pointlessly packaged things for 'convenience'.

milehip

We're number 1
We're number 1
We're number 1

Inn your face Luxembourg!!

SEPT 23 1989

i burn mine out back in a barrel so no waste in this house

Cee-Jay-Cee

Manufacturers need to start plain wrapping products. It’s ridiculous the amount of packaging used on electrical products etc with very little need for any of it. The same goes for many foods. Once manufacturers cut down on the amount of wrapping etc then we can concentrate on getting people to recycle.

SEPT 23 1989

Cee-Jay-Cee wrote: »

Manufacturers need to start plain wrapping products. It’s ridiculous the amount of packaging used on electrical products etc with very little need for any of it. The same goes for many foods. Once manufacturers cut down on the amount of wrapping etc then we can concentrate on getting people to recycle.

I like to get my new TV in one piece not many

dxhound2005

There wouldn't be a word about it except for Blue Planet. It used to be the ozone hole which was supposed to spell the end of the world. Not a dickie bird about it these days.

shane6977

buried wrote: »

What I don't understand is, why can't I just keep two containers that I own, go to the shop, fill my containers to the volume or weight that I want from a larger container in the store and pay for that? That could be done with a whole heap of packaged foods and drink, from liquids to cereals. That's what should be done to help stop this plastic packaging problem.

My wife and I had the exact same idea some time back. It makes perfect sense and would give a huge reduction in packaging. Costs would go down too as manufacturers would not need to pay to produce individual packages.

jimmycrackcorm

The Swedes are the guys to follow when it comes to implementing waste recycling: 99% of all household waste is recycled.

You just have to keep replaying ABBA songs.

dxhound2005

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

The Swedes are the guys to follow when it comes to implementing waste recycling: 99% of all household waste is recycled.

You just have to keep replaying ABBA songs.

50% of the waste is burned. That would not be allowed here.

Poochie05

dxhound2005 wrote: »

There wouldn't be a word about it except for Blue Planet. It used to be the ozone hole which was supposed to spell the end of the world. Not a dickie bird about it these days.

That's because we did something about it.
The ozone layer is expected to be fully recovered by 2050 thanks to the Montreal Protocol, considered to be one of the most successful global agreements on environmental issues although there is still some work to be done: https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/09/montreal-protocol-ozone-treaty-30-climate-change-hcfs-hfcs/

Harry Palmr

dxhound2005 wrote: »

There wouldn't be a word about it except for Blue Planet. It used to be the ozone hole which was supposed to spell the end of the world. Not a dickie bird about it these days.

Ever wonder why? Edit, beaten to it!

K.Flyer

dxhound2005 wrote: »

50% of the waste is burned. That would not be allowed here.

What was that great big incinerator in Ringsend built for?

dxhound2005

K.Flyer wrote: »

What was that great big incinerator in Ringsend built for?

To poison the people of Dublin.

minikin

lies... damned lies...
In those 2015 eurostat figures we were seventh best out of 27 countries at recycling all packaging (67.5%)

graph

Panthro

We're No.1 woo!

WoollyRedHat

Radiohead tried to warn us

Alf Veedersane

K.Flyer wrote: »

What was that great big incinerator in Ringsend built for?

To incinerate 600,000 tonnes of waste so that we don't have to export it to be incinerated where it wouldn't be poisoning our own and be fine.

wakka12

spurious wrote: »

In Germany recently and there was not a plastic bottle to be seen. I think redemption gave 20c per bottle, possibly even 25c. The homeless guys were cleaning up - literally.

In canada they have it too. The homeless were itching to get at those empty bottles, I remember if you were in the park with your friends having a picnic homeless people would come up behind you reach into the centre of the group and takeaway any plastic bottles or package without asking, it was weird

HONKEY TONK

There should be a 20c deposit on all plastic bottles. When you bring the bottles back to the supermarket. A machine scans the barcode and prints out a voucher to get the money off your next shop.


Works well in Germany

Skedaddle

It's the manufacturers and retailers that are driving this problem. People don't want the plastic packaging. They're usually been given no choice in the matter.

All the focus is on the end users.

Nitrogan

There's a cultural thing to waste disposal too. The idea that it should be free passes responsibility onto someone else and leads to more waste but a cost encourages fly tipping with some people. Personal responsibility is not a natural trait in Ireland so maybe it's a behaviour only the government can influence with direct intervention at source.

A tax on plastic packaging, whatever the product, would be the most effective solution. However industry lobby groups would kill anything like that. There's more money creating and disposing of plastic packaging than there is public will against it.

HONKEY TONK

Nitrogan wrote: »

There's a cultural thing to waste disposal too. The idea that it should be free passes responsibility onto someone else and leads to more waste but a cost encourages fly tipping with some people. Personal responsibility is not a natural trait in Ireland so maybe it's a behaviour only the government can influence with direct intervention at source.

A tax on plastic packaging, whatever the product, would be the most effective solution. However industry lobby groups would kill anything like that. There's more money creating and disposing of plastic packaging than there is public will against it.

A tax would be pointless as it still doesn't encourage recycling correctly.

If people had to pay a deposit then it encourages proper recycling by returning the plastic.

Same goes for glass bottles

Suckit

whisky_galore wrote: »

We're lazy and obsessed with pointlessly packaged things for 'convenience'.

Skedaddle wrote: »

It's the manufacturers and retailers that are driving this problem. People don't want the plastic packaging. They're usually been given no choice in the matter.

All the focus is on the end users.

On a side note, if you collect it, it will be worth a fortune in years to come. Higher than gold they say.

Mongfinder General

spurious wrote: »

In Germany recently and there was not a plastic bottle to be seen. I think redemption gave 20c per bottle, possibly even 25c. The homeless guys were cleaning up - literally.

This is what I don’t get. We’re being fed a load of ****e that there is no money to be made in recycling. How is it that the Germans are handing back money for used plastic?

Graces7

shane6977 wrote: »

My wife and I had the exact same idea some time back. It makes perfect sense and would give a huge reduction in packaging. Costs would go down too as manufacturers would not need to pay to produce individual packages.

I have seen this done in I think 2 shops.

screamer

Plastic packaging on toys is just unbelievable. Santa uses lots and lots of plastic to protect his toys from the Chinese north pole.

screamer

Mongfinder General wrote: »

spurious wrote: »

In Germany recently and there was not a plastic bottle to be seen. I think redemption gave 20c per bottle, possibly even 25c. The homeless guys were cleaning up - literally.

This is what I don’t get. We’re being fed a load of ****e that there is no money to be made in recycling. How is it that the Germans are handing back money for used plastic?

Because they load the cost of the plastic bottle into the selling price. Then give you back your own money when.you return it
There is no money in waste plastic. I remember the local binman.telling us it'd be cheaper to take it to landfill than.what they get for it.

Kivaro

Every time I read stories about our mismanagement of waste, this image comes to mind, and then I think how flucked up we are on this planet:

greasepalm

are the germans using old visa and debit cards been plastic.we need good safe way to get rid of rubbish.

Skedaddle

The solution to everything isn't tax and manipulation of market forces.
We need to change the culture by regulation and also by just bringing people and businesses on board.

suicide_circus

This is an area where state intervention can really make a positive difference. Deposits of plastic and glass bottles have been the norm in much of continental Europe for 40+ years. We are decades behind. This should be introduced along with punitive taxes on plastic packaging. There is no earthly reason why 3 Lemons should be sold in a polystyrene tray with a polythene wrapper.

Seth Brundle

suicide_circus wrote: »

There is no earthly reason why 3 Lemons should be sold in a polystyrene tray with a polythene wrapper.

I read something on boards recently saying how the law allows the customer to remove any unnecessary packaging and leave it with the seller (the shop)

Alf Veedersane

I think there was a study done maybe 10 years ago where the quantities of plastic waste being generated didn't make an indigenous recycling industry financially viable. Wonder of thats still the case.

Of course it would probably mean everyone would also need to bother their holes rinsing food etc out of recyclable plastic too

Skedaddle

suicide_circus wrote: »

This is an area where state intervention can really make a positive difference. Deposits of plastic and glass bottles have been the norm in much of continental Europe for 40+ years. We are decades behind. This should be introduced along with punitive taxes on plastic packaging. There is no earthly reason why 3 Lemons should be sold in a polystyrene tray with a polythene wrapper.

It's quite simple. The supermarket can process the fruit in a fruit packing facility that's largely automated or at least centralised. This means they can not bother recruiting a few extra shelf stackers / fruit section manager as they're just reducing the job to stacking widgets, it makes stock control easier and so on. It's basically shortcutting needing to recruit retail staff.

Some of it's about differentiating otherwise very generic products, some of it's about convenience for the retailer / systematisation.

If you want to cut this stuff out, it will have to be done through regulation as the retailers could have moved on this years ago. They virtue signal every so often by coming out with campaigns and press releases, but then they seem to achieve very little.

Also, where plastic packaging is used, there's no need for it to be multi-layered complex, next to impossible to recycle products.

This is also a relatively recent thing too. Industrialised societies functioned extremely well for many, many years without all this plastic.

Cheshire Cat

Mongfinder General wrote: »

This is what I don’t get. We’re being fed a load of ****e that there is no money to be made in recycling. How is it that the Germans are handing back money for used plastic?

Because you pay a deposit when you buy the plastic bottles. Was in Germany last weekend and bought a 6 pack of 500 ml bottles of water in Lidl. The 6 pack was €0.65, the deposit was €1.50 (6x €0.25). That's incentive enough for people to return the empty bottles.

When you return the bottles to the machine you have the option to donate the deposit to a food bank, thought that was a great idea!

Suckit

It's ridiculous when you take into account the products actual usage life.

A bottle of water can last for 1 minute. Wrappers last 2 seconds. It's nuts.

Someone in Iceland invented a drinks bottle made from Seaweed last year, and it can also be used for packaging. IIRC it was also cheap to manufacture. It makes no sense to still use plastic on many products. Only real reason is probably the owners of the plastic plants.

erica74

Cheshire Cat wrote: »

Because you pay a deposit when you buy the plastic bottles. Was in Germany last weekend and bought a 6 pack of 500 ml bottles of water in Lidl. The 6 pack was €0.65, the deposit was €1.50 (6x €0.25). That's incentive enough for people to return the empty bottles.

When you return the bottles to the machine you have the option to donate the deposit to a food bank, thought that was a great idea!

I would be on board with that. I can't imagine anyone not being on board with a deposit and refund system if it means less waste and money back to the customer.