RTE Investigates - Ireland's Wild Waste

marno21

Anyone watching this? Some reckless dumping of waste going on

Roger Hassenforder

Jim Ferry though

What a picce of work.

jon1981

You reckon most people give it a second thought where their waste ends up? I doubt it.

After seeing this programme tonight i think we all have a moral obligation to limit waste.

Even if the councils were to close all these illegal sites it doesn't sound like we have anywhere to legally put it. Waste reduction needs to start at home.

EPAndlee

Should be a serious eye opener for people

loyatemu

they hired a company called Maverick Demolition - what did they expect!?

jon1981

loyatemu wrote: »

they hired a company called Maverick Demolition - what did they expect!?

That thought crossed my mind too.

nuac

Good work on this programme.

Disturbing information

Wanderer78

Not really surprised, again, I'm sorry to continually say this but, 'the market' isn't truly capable of dealing with this issue, as it becomes more important to 'maximise profits' than dealing with this issue, privatising our waste management issues is failing in many ways, and I'd completely agree with other posters, we have to ultimately reduce materials being produced in the first place.

duffman3833

To help reduce the waste in our homes, it has to start with manufacturers. how many items in a house have excess amounts of waste plastic that is not needed? I'm sure there are many ways we can change the way we use our waste at home, but a lot comes from the items we buy that simply are not needed

Wanderer78

duffman3833 wrote:

To help reduce the waste in our homes, it has to start with manufacturers. how many items in a house have excess amounts of waste plastic that is not needed? I'm sure there are many ways we can change the way we use our waste at home, but a lot comes from the items we buy that simply are not needed

Completely agree, some fantastic work has been done at the end point of waste, with majority of people playing a positive role to dealing with this issue, but I do fear 'the polluter pays' is running out of steam. We have to start pushing back at our creators of materials, but that requires tough political changes, are our political institutions capable of doing this?

Del.Monte

I also find it somewhat ironic that China is now refusing to take waste back considering that they are responsible for producing so much of it both in terms of low quality pound shop junk and associated packaging.

odyssey06

Some of the stuff being dumped wasn't household waste, it was coming from building sites in the North. I'm not sure how you reduce the quantities of that?
This needs to be made a serious criminal offence.

Realistically, more of these are going to be needed, we can debate where they go, but that's a different battle - the Poolbeg incinerator means that Dublin household waste isn't going to landfill.
https://www.rte.ie/news/2018/0517/964056-waste_exports/

Wanderer78

Del.Monte wrote:

I also find it somewhat ironic that China is now refusing to take waste back considering that they are responsible for producing so much of it both in terms of low quality pound shop junk and associated packaging.

To some degree, I can understand and agree with them, this is a complex issue, whereby we re all effectively equally to blame, our complex economic systems effectively constantly requires us all to continually consume, we use metrics and metric systems such as GDP etc to measure our successes in doing so, and we believe by continually growing, that this is good for our economies, but the truth is, it is not, it in fact is extremely dangerous for us all, particularly environmentally. British Economist kate raworth explains this very well in her work.

Countries such as China obviously produce the majority of our goods, but they are only responding to their own metrics and metric systems, and in return are also responding to the global call for continual growth, this is unsustainable.

We all need national and international agreements that this is the case, and that individually and collectively, we must change this, but sadly, we re currently stuck in this mind frame. It is interesting to hear from raworth though that some local and even some international governments have asked her for some advice on how to create her concept of 'doughnut economics', which includes ideas such as all materials being used must be 100% recyclable all the time, amongst other things.

duffman3833

as mentioned on the show, if there are too many regulations etc.. there is greater chance for loopholes so the whole process needs to be renewed with a more stricter and more frequent inspections
i don't know what solutions there would be for this mess but i certainly think this issue will be marked for investigation and forgotten about like many cases in this country

theyoungchap

Look at the amount of waste packaging on everything which arrives into our house - buy a micro USB stick and it has at least 3 x 3 inches of plastic wrapped so tight you need a scissors to cut it off. Totally unnecessary, and then into the green bin.

And the program the other night was the tip of the iceberg, there was also the issue of personal fly tipping, etc which wasn't even mentioned.

Del.Monte

The whole scene is so depressing...yesterday, desperate for some strawberries for my youngest child I opted for these from Lidl. Whatever ever happened to the wicker punnets of yesteryear? No markings on the plastic container - so presumably not recyclable and of course the soft cover is also destined for the waste bin.

Wanderer78

duffman3833 wrote: »

as mentioned on the show, if there are too many regulations etc.. there is greater chance for loopholes so the whole process needs to be renewed with a more stricter and more frequent inspections
i don't know what solutions there would be for this mess but i certainly think this issue will be marked for investigation and forgotten about like many cases in this country

id argue, if there isnt enough regulation and/or better regulation, and strictly governed and controlled, loopholes start appearing, policies such as austerity certainly dont help either

theyoungchap

I think this is one of the very few things which privatisation doesn't work for. The capacity for the private operators to engage in everything from fly tipping to burning mattresses is just a shambles.
I would let the private waste companies pick up the bins, pay them for that, but ultimately the state should be responsible for what happens to the waste after that.
Otherwise we'll end up back to the good old days where the system was a complete inefficient mess and the lorry left the depot at 9, stopped for tea at 10.30-11, back to the depot for lunch at 1-2, out again, back by 4 to go home.

Agent_47

Unfortunately I don't think the waste issue will ever be solved.

I think there are cultural aspects to how we in Ireland approach our obligations in an efficient and effective manner. They range from "Can't pay to Won't pay", lack of cohesive planning, discussion with manufacturers and retailers to ban single use plastic for instance.

The cultural aspects extend to our housing issues, our approach to services (footpaths, roads etc)

Changing culture would have to start in the education of our children in order for it to feed through the whole population.

Wanderer78

Agent_47 wrote: »

Unfortunately I don't think the waste issue will ever be solved.

I think there are cultural aspects to how we in Ireland approach our obligations in an efficient and effective manner. They range from "Can't pay to Won't pay", lack of cohesive planning, discussion with manufacturers and retailers to ban single use plastic for instance.

The cultural aspects extend to our housing issues, our approach to services (footpaths, roads etc)

Changing culture would have to start in the education of our children in order for it to feed through the whole population.

true, there will always be issues regarding waste, but i have seen far worse waste issues in other parts of the world, its not exclusively our problem.

the continual pressure of placing this problem on the shoulders of the individual has limitations and if it continues, will probably eventually lead to failure. there has actually been wide scale acceptance and adherence by the majority to this issue over the last few years, but our waste issues seem to be increasing.

we have been educating ourselves on this matter for decades, i can remember being told in school during the 80's of fishermen regularly pulling in plastic in their nets, this seems to have gotten worse since then, even though continual education is extremely important, it has its limitations, something serious and fundamental is going wrong here

Agent_47

Buy less, eat less, waste less is one way of reducing the waste footprint.

Plastic bottles and tetrapaks are the main issue for me at home but it would be great if we could change the mindset around using the dreaded disposable coffee cups and lids at work.

If I could get an alternative to my Dolce Gusto coffee pods it would be great but I don't go through that many. It is the single use plastic that is the scourge mainly packaging.

Wanderer78

Agent_47 wrote: »

Buy less, eat less, waste less is one way of reducing the waste footprint.

Plastic bottles and tetrapaks are the main issue for me at home but it would be great if we could change the mindset around using the dreaded disposable coffee cups and lids at work.

If I could get an alternative to my Dolce Gusto coffee pods it would be great but I don't go through that many. It is the single use plastic that is the scourge mainly packaging.

completely agree with this statement, and hopefully people take it on, unfortunately since our complex economic systems are based on effectively the opposite, we have a problem.

Del.Monte

The return of glass milk bottles would be a good move too and deposits on all tins/bottles like in the olden days. They still had glass milk bottles when I lived on the Isle of Man in 2001 and still do it seems. Why not here?



https://www.facebook.com/pg/Aalindairy/about/?ref=page_internal

theyoungchap

Deposits on bottles is the biggest no-brainer I have came across. It works fantastically in Germany.

I also hate when the likes of Leinster Rugby give out flags, etc to create an atmosphere - waved for an hour, then landfill.

duffman3833

i think its daft having to pay €4 now at my local recycling center just to get in the gate. Thats a turn off for a lot of people. i see it too often illegal waste dumped on country roads or in fields and a lot of it could easily be recycled but people who have no conscience and find it easier and cheaper to dump it for someone else to cleanup
They should go all CSI on these illegal dumping occurrences and nail the person that did it

Wanderer78

duffman3833 wrote:

i think its daft having to pay €4 now at my local recycling center just to get in the gate. Thats a turn off for a lot of people. i see it too often illegal waste dumped on country roads or in fields and a lot of it could easily be recycled but people who have no conscience and find it easier and cheaper to dump it for someone else to cleanup They should go all CSI on these illegal dumping occurrences and nail the person that did it

Resources just aren't there to do this, plenty of illegal dumping going on around the country

theyoungchap

duffman3833 wrote: »

i think its daft having to pay €4 now at my local recycling center just to get in the gate. Thats a turn off for a lot of people. i see it too often illegal waste dumped on country roads or in fields and a lot of it could easily be recycled but people who have no conscience and find it easier and cheaper to dump it for someone else to cleanup
They should go all CSI on these illegal dumping occurrences and nail the person that did it

How are you going to do that?

The one part I don't understand - do Greyhound etc not use the incinerator in Poolbeg? Every waste collector should be able to account for what they are doing with every kg of waste they take into their facility.

zom

odyssey06 wrote: »

Some of the stuff being dumped wasn't household waste, it was coming from building sites in the North. I'm not sure how you reduce the quantities of that?
This needs to be made a serious criminal offence.

Realistically, more of these are going to be needed, we can debate where they go, but that's a different battle - the Poolbeg incinerator means that Dublin household waste isn't going to landfill.
https://www.rte.ie/news/2018/0517/964056-waste_exports/

Now there is new idea to increase waste processed by Poolbeg incinerator so we could serve North, East and God knows whom else ?

https://www.independent.ie/business/irish/dublins-controversial-incinerator-plans-to-increase-waste-processed-by-90000-tonnes-a-year-37112780.html

The owners of Dublin's controversial waste incinerator - the country's biggest - is considering a plan to increase the amount of waste processed by the facility by 90,000 tonnes a year in what would be a significant expansion of its operations.
Dublin Waste to Energy, which operates the €500m public-private partnership facility, is owned by US group Covanta and a unit of Australia's Macquarie investment bank.
The waste-to-energy plant was designed to handle 600,000 tonnes of waste a year from the Dublin region. That waste is material that might otherwise have gone to landfills. Last November, it reached a goal of processing 1,800 tonnes of solid waste a day - its full capacity.
The plant generates up to 61MW of power a year. Dublin Waste to Energy has now entered into discussions with An Bord Pleanala to explore options to increase the amount of waste the facility processes every year.

Wanderer78

all is not well with our waste management systems

https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2018/0928/998577-waste/

Qrt

Wanderer78 wrote: »

all is not well with our waste management systems

https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2018/0928/998577-waste/

Renationalise it. It's the only option. Even England hasn't privatised waste collection, and that says something!

Wanderer78

Qrt wrote:

Renationalise it. It's the only option. Even England hasn't privatised waste collection, and that says something!

It's hard to know what to do about failing privatised industries, im not convinced renationalising them would actually work since we re bound by so many barriers to do so, I'm not even convinced the proposals by the UK labour party of renationalising some of their industries will work for them either.