Waste compactors, approximately 5m long and nearly 2.5m tall, will be installed at St Stephen’s Green and Temple Bar in the coming weeks to take bin bags banned from 90 streets in the south inner city.
Since January 1st plastic refuse sacks, frequently torn apart resulting in litter strewn streets, have been prohibited from use in the area around Grafton Street and Temple Bar.
Waste collectors have been moving as many business and residents as possible from bags to wheelie bins, with about 35 per cent making the switch. However, the remaining properties do not have the space to accommodate bins.
Some companies have also provided a direct collection service, where customers can arrange a time to meet bin lorries and hand over their sacks so they don’t sit on the street.
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However, Dublin City Council has agreed to allow trials of large-scale municipal waste compactors at two locations in the city to finally rid the area of plastic bags.
One compactor will be located at the top of Grafton Street at St Stephen’s Green, while the other will be on Fownes Street, down the side of the former central bank building in Temple Bar.
The council’s head of waste management, Barry Woods, said the compactors, supplied by an Austrian company, can each take up to 600 large waste sacks.
“You buy a bag from your waste collector, you go to the compactor and you get a code and the drum will open. You put your bag in, and it will weigh your waste and then you will get a bill accordingly.”
The compactors will be procured and serviced by the waste companies and will be emptied once a night between 4am-6am Mr Woods said. The compactors are longer than a standard car parking space and also require space at one end so they can be removed for emptying by waste companies.
Mr Woods said the council hoped to “iron out any difficulties” with the new system on the southside before extending the bag ban to the northside later this year.
Legislation requiring the use of bins instead of refuse sacks came into force in 2016 but residents and businesses on about 1,000 streets in Dublin were given a derogation from the rules because their properties were unsuitable for bins. Streets in the city centre, or inner suburbs with no gardens or no direct back access, were mostly affected.
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Once bags have been eliminated from the city centre the council will move to end their use in suburbs. Councillors have called for the use of underground bins, but Mr Woods said, “existing utilities meant getting a significant piece of infrastructure into the ground can be difficult”. The use of multiple waste companies also mitigated against underground bins, which were more practical where there was “a central waste collector, usually the municipal authority”, he said.
