Industry is waking up to the potential as well as the challenges of waste management with a raft of EU directives focuses minds on fostering producer responsibility, writes Colm Ward.

For most people, recycling involves paper, bottles or cardboard. Recycling old cars is not the first thing to come to mind. Yet the car is one of the most recycled products in the EU.

Currently, more than 70 per cent of a car gets recycled when it reaches the end of its life, according to Mr Cyril McHugh of SIMI, the group that represents the Irish motor industry. Under a new EU directive, this is set to increase to 95 per cent by 2015.

This target is set out in the EU End of Life Vehicle (ELV) Directive, which makes car manufacturers responsible for treating vehicles once they reach the end of their lives. One result is that manufacturers are using many of the same plastics in their cars so that end-of-life treatment can be made less complex.

SIMI is currently discussing some aspects of the directive's implementation with the Government but Mr McHugh says the industry in Ireland is in favour of the initiative. "The motor industry itself is very keen to reduce any environmental impact," he says.

He does not believe the new directive, which will apply to all cars from 2007, will have any major impact on the cost of buying a new car. He suggests that the Republic should look at the system in the Netherlands, where a small levy is imposed on new cars being taxed for the first time to cover the cost of disposal at end of life.

The ELV directive and others, such as the proposed Directive on Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment, are designed to foster a culture of producer responsibility. Effectively this places the onus on producers to ensure that their goods are disposed of in the most environmentally friendly manner possible.

This approach to waste is based on a hierarchy of treatment options, explains Mr Erik O'Donovan, environment executive with IBEC. At the top of the hierarchy is prevention of waste. This is followed by reduction, re-use, recycling, energy recovery and, as a last resort, disposal.

Mr O'Donovan believes that waste is becoming one of the biggest issues for Irish business, particularly smaller companies that do not have huge resources to invest in expensive waste treatment techniques. Nonetheless, some have done "excellent work" in making their processes more environmentally friendly, he says.

Apart from the obvious need to comply with the law, many companies are beginning to realise that they can increase their profits by making their operations more environmentally friendly.

"The businesses are well aware that this can save them money," says Mr O'Donovan.

There are also some compelling corporate reasons from taking the environment into consideration, he believes. "People are saying that we want greener products, you know. Society is moving on." He believes that a good waste-management infrastructure needs to be developed in Ireland to enable companies, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), to treat their waste. "The time for procrastination is drawing to a close and now it is time to deliver it," he says.

The IBEC environmental awards were introduced as an incentive to encourage Irish companies to adopt better environmental standards. "What we are doing with the awards is to give [these companies] a bit more visibility," explains Mr O'Donovan. "In going forward, we have to find solutions and that is what these awards are about."

The winner of last year's eco-design award for environmentally friendly product design was CEL, based in Tuam, Co Galway, a company that designs and manufactures electronic components and systems for the automotive industry.

The award was given for CEL's redesign of its circuit boards to reduce their environmental impact. For CEL, environmental considerations take a high priority at all stages of the production cycle. In addition to allowing the company and its customers meet their environmental obligations, it also gives it a competitive advantage in many areas.

"While some of our design guidelines are driven by the ever-increasing demands of the automotive industry to reduce energy usage, weight and material content, there are also real possibilities for gaining competitive advantages," says Mr Peter Reilly, research and development manager.

For a company such as CEL, which supplies original equipment manufacturers, it is not just their own environmental obligations that need to be taken into account but their customers' too. "For example, we must ensure that hazardous or prohibited substances are not contained in the raw materials we purchase. This is to ensure that our automotive customer himself can comply with the End of Life Directive. Or we mark plastics to facilitate recycling," according to Mr Shane Mooney, manager of the EPA Cleaner Greener Production Project at CEL.

He stresses, however, that there is rigorous testing and evaluation to ensure that any alternative materials used are of comparable quality and functionality to the materials they might be replacing.

For many SMEs, the challenges posed by the Directive on Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment, and others like it, are just being realised. "Up to recently, the level of awareness was very, very low," according to Mr Mark Fielding, of the Small and Medium Sized Enterprises association, ISME.

He believes there was not enough information made available for these companies at an early stage. Now, however, many are becoming more aware of the issues and are looking at the use of alternative materials and processes. That awareness is still in its infancy. "I would call it a trickle rather than a flood now," he says.

ISME is currently running a series of workshops around the State which address several issues including waste management. Help is also available in the form of Enterprise Ireland's Environmentally Superior Products Initiative, which offers grants to SMEs to improve their environmental performance.

Dr Vincent O'Malley, senior environmental consultant with Enterprise Ireland, says such initiatives are about "inviting businesses to look at their whole process to make them more environmentally aware". Environmental regulations should not be seen as a cost, he believes, but as an opportunity for businesses to improve by becoming more efficient.