New options for soft plastics

Ger Roe

Yesterday's announcement that Thunderbirds are GO! for the recycle of soft plastics has highlighted the uncoordinated way in which waste is managed in this country.

For years my local Bray (Council) recycle center had been taking soft plastic material, only to suddenly stop doing it about two months ago. After a considerable public backlash against the instruction to then place the material in the normal disposal bin for landfill, they issued a lengthy explanation for their action. They said that they had in fact been storing the material themselves for some time because there was no outlet to sent it on to, other than incineration and they had decided that was not good enough anymore because it wasn't recycling and landfill was in fact the best remaining option. This declaration didn't go down well, but the new policy prevailed.

Yesterday (a few weeks after the Bray Council announcement), the government agency for making a big deal out of the limited recycling that we do, proudly announced that we are now a world industry leader in the field of soft plastic recycling and we can place the material in domestic recycle bins - even the types of soft plastic that were prohibited when such material was collected previously (crinkly crisp packets).

It strikes me as left hand not knowing what right hand is doing and highlights the piecemeal and totally uncoordinated approach that is being taken with regard to waste management. It should be a national priority managed on a national basis, with the same facilities available for all areas of the country. it should not be dependent on local council policy and lack of local expertise or effort.

Ger Roe

As an update - I just received a reply to a question posed to Bray Council recycle depot asking if they will now reverse their decision :

"Not yet but we are looking at several different ways on which this issue can be resolved and hopefully in the future we might be able to return. For now you can leave it in your recycling bin."

I don't have a recycle bin as I exclusively use their facility - which in fairness, is way ahead of most council run efforts in terms of the range of recycle options available. This is my whole point, the waste management process is piecemeal and uncoordinated. Why can they not take advantage of yesterdays nationally proclaimed progress... is it because the new facility is only open to the commercial waste collection sector?

quinnd6

RTE act like the entire country is the same as Dublin.

I don't have a green bin for recycling I have a blue bin for recycling.

I live in the Midlands.

I rang up Oxigen asking them what do I do with my soft plastics and they told me to carry on putting soft plastics into my black waste bin unless they tell me otherwise. So it's all bull in the media. Ireland is still backwards when it comes to soft plastic recycling. Green party are a joke, all they care about is Dublin.

In the Midlands we have a sub par recycling service, hardly any buses, nearly all our buses have been taken away, you can't get to the next town on a bus without waiting for hours, it's worse than it was years ago and the government have also tried their best to take away as many of our post offices as they can. That's the government for you and that's the way it is. It's incredibly backward in many ways. The government use RTE and the media as a propoganda tool. All the money is being spent by the government in Dublin and the big cities and towns. The rural areas don't even get the basic services that they rightly should have. It's all lies.

Anyway back to the topic being discussed, still the same for me no recycling of soft plastics. Soft plastics still go in the black bin here.