Ireland beat EU recycling targets during 2021 despite Covid-19, report shows

Ireland increased its recycling during 2021, which was primarily driven by households, while the option of putting soft plastic in recycling bins helped increase plastic recycling by 8 per cent, according to Repak’s annual report.

Overall, recycling rates increased by 15,639 tonnes (2.2 per cent) to 718,683 tonnes compared to 2020, while there was a 4 per cent increase in the rate of recycling by households.

Repak funded the recovery of 302,000 tonnes of packaging – a decrease of 33,000 tonnes (10 per cent) on 2020 “which was due to the diverting of more material to recycling”.

Plastic recycling increased to 96,412 tonnes, with the overall plastic recycling rate increasing from 29 to 31 per cent, the report issued on Wednesday confirmed.

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Despite continued challenges due to Covid-19, Repak surpassed all EU recycling and recovery targets in 2021, but more demanding targets are about to come into force, it underlined.

Repak achieved an overall recycling rate of 66 per cent and a waste recovery rate of 96 per cent last year – surpassing EU targets set at 65 per cent for recycling and 75 per cent for recovery which preserves resources through use of waste in place of other raw materials.

It funded the recycling and recovery of 1,020,580 tonnes of packaging material – surpassing the one million mark for the third time.

Repak’s 3,431 business members were central to soft plastics being reintroduced for acceptance in green recycling bins last September, Repak chief executive Seamus Clancy said.

“This was a major shift in making recycling easy for householders and with strong support from Minister [of State] Ossian Smyth provided a robust messaging platform.”

Under the Repak plastic pledge initiative, 141 members reduced or replaced 23,000 tonnes of plastic packaging from the market – with an average plastic packaging use reduction of 18.6 per cent.

All key materials surpassed current EU recycling targets: glass 86 per cent (EU target 60 per cent); metal 71 per cent (EU target 50 per cent), paper 84 per cent (EU target 60 per cent), plastic 31 per cent (EU target: 22.5 per cent) and wood 69 per cent (EU target 15 per cent).

Paper was also up on 2020 with an additional 5,757 tonnes being recycled on 2021. Glass (6,361 tonnes) and steel (1,827 tonnes), however, showed a small drop off mainly due to prolonged business closures caused by Covid-19.

Despite difficult operational conditions, the waste packaging recycling sector operated efficiently and in unison to ensure continuity of service resulting in positive results across key materials in 2021, Mr Clancy said.

Ireland has been a leading EU country in waste management for the past 23 years, surpassing all targets to date, he said, “but we are now reaching a critical juncture”.

“Policy created to achieve future recycling targets is now being implemented and this demands an evolution of how we manage our packaging waste.”

Mr Clancy underlined the challenges the European green deal, the EU circular economy package and the single use plastics directive. “These in conjunction with the invasion of Ukraine, supply chain disruption, the indirect consequences of Covid-19 and current inflationary pressures bring further challenges.”

Repak continued rollout of “eco fee modulation”, where more difficult to recycle products attract higher fees, and a “net necessary cost model”, where the producer will pay 80 per cent of any costs left over after the income from sale of a waste packaging material is taken into account.

The report is available at repak.ie