EPA - Ireland's Environment, An Integrated Assessment - 2020

Ireland’s Environment – An Integrated Assessment 2020 SYSTEM CHANGE – DELIVERY ON SECTORAL AND SOCIETAL OUTCOMES NEEDS TO BE ACCELERATED SOE 12: Circular Economy Move to a Less Wasteful and Circular Economy Where the Priority is Waste Prevention, Reuse, Repair and Recycling Changing our behaviours on resource consumption, waste management and recycling are actions that everybody, from business to individuals, can take to protect the environment. Ireland has reached a plateau in relation to waste management; to further deliver the necessary waste prevention and circular economy ambitions will be a challenge. Recent waste statistics show that Ireland needs to do more on waste, with the decreases in the recycling rates for packaging waste a timely reminder of the continued requirement to evolve national waste management policies (EPA, 2020i,j). Overall municipal waste, construction and demolition waste, hazardous waste, waste electrical and electronic equipment and end-of-life vehicle waste generation is increasing with economic prosperity and population growth. A total of 14 million tonnes of waste was generated in Ireland in 2018 across all sectors. This is significant, and waste generation continues to be closely linked with economic growth, lifestyle and consumption patterns; these are links that have yet to be broken. Plastic now makes up one-fifth of waste in household recycling and residual bins. We need to focus more on prevention and not just on the recycling and recovery of the waste that is produced. Campaigns such as Stop Food Waste are based on this approach. We are at a real point of transition in the waste area. New waste plans and strategies are expected over the next few years as Ireland starts to move to a more circular economy (Chapter 9). One such plan that has already been published in 2020 is the Waste Action Plan for a Circular Economy which covers national waste policy for the period 2020-2025 (Government of Ireland, 2020). There are also capacity issues to resolve. Landfill and waste-to-energy treatment is at capacity in Ireland and the country is highly dependent on export markets to treat residual, recyclable and hazardous wastes. Reductions in hazardous waste can be seen across some industrial sectors as companies change to clean production processes (Chapter 10). Waste targets under the Climate Action Plan (DCCAE, 2019) and the Waste Action Plan for a Circular Economy are to reduce the percentage of municipal waste sent to landfill to 10 per cent by 2035, to reduce food waste by 50 per cent by 2030 and to recycle 70 per cent of packaging waste by 2030. Meeting the 2025 plastic recycling target of 50 per cent and the 2030 target of 55 per cent will be challenging (Chapter 9). We need to continue to provide evidence-based information on consumption burdens, waste generation and impacts to allow sustainable choices to be made more easily. Consideration should be given to bringing forward a more informative eco-labelling scheme, as envisaged by the Green Deal, that presents clear signals to consumers and rewards more sustainable goods and services. In parallel with better signalling to consumers on products, it is essential to continue messaging on the quality of our consumption behaviours to remind us that our everyday lifestyles, activities and use of resources should not affect our health and that of our environment. Measures to encourage changes in behaviour, as well as enforcement, are needed to deal with littering in both urban and rural areas, to prevent waste crime and to punish those who break the law. Illegal waste activity ranges from littering to backyard burning and large- scale unauthorised waste disposal. We need to step up enforcement efforts nationally to stamp out fly tipping and illegal dumping. Litter is still a major problem and results in thousands of complaints every year to local authorities. It also results in significant clean-up costs. It needs to become socially unacceptable to litter. Local authorities have a major role to play in tackling waste crime. There needs to be improved information sharing on waste enforcement to ensure that illegal waste activities can be quickly detected and prevented, remediated where necessary and penalised where they do occur. The circular economy approach should be central to any new waste strategies. To implement this, we will need targeted approaches to research and development, food waste, construction waste, plastics, hazardous waste and other priority waste streams. Regular data updates are needed on the sustainability of our waste practices and on where our waste ends up for final disposal or recovery. This information will help to reassure the public that when they make the effort to recycle their waste there are checks and balances in place to ensure that it is managed properly. 446