Householders are to be charged by weight for the waste they put out for collection within three years under a new policy aimed at providing more incentives for re-use and recycling.
The Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey, also announced yesterday that a new landfill levy will be imposed on all local authorities and private contractors from June 1st - initially at €15 per tonne, increasing by €5 per year.
National bans on landfilling specific recyclable materials are also to be introduced this year to support greater recovery rates. A total of 10 material recovery facilities are to be developed under the programme, aided by a €127 million grant scheme.
A National Waste Management Board is to be established "as a matter of urgency" to co-ordinate, monitor, review and advise on all aspects of waste management policy, as well as a Recycling Consultative Forum and a Market Development Group for recyclables.
The new structure is one of the key elements of a major new policy statement, Preventing and Recycling Waste: Delivering Change, which builds on Changing Our Ways, the 1998 policy emphasising prevention, minimisation, reuse and recycling.
Mr Dempsey made his announcement at the Oxigen Materials Recycling Facility in Clonshaugh, near Dublin Airport, where recyclable material from 150,000 households in the capital is sorted, segregated and baled for processing into new products.
"We have made real progress in recycling in recent years," he said. By the end of this year, 250,000 Dublin homes will have segregated waste collection and similar programmes have been "rolled out" in Galway, Nenagh, Waterford and parts of Meath and Louth.
There are now 1,300 "bring banks" compared to 400 in 1994 and more than 200,000 tonnes of packaging waste - 25 per cent of the total - was recycled last year. "More waste prevention plus more recycling equals less waste equals less landfills", the Minister said.
Under the regional waste management plans now being implemented, bring-bank density will increase from one to every 3,000 people to one for every 500 to 1,000 and segregated waste collection will be extended to most urban centres "where economically feasible".
The €127 million capital grant scheme under the National Development Plan will provide assistance for new "civic amenity sites", bring banks, transfer stations, material recovery facilities and composting and biological treatment plants, Mr Dempsey said.
He emphasised that the National Waste Management Board would be "an active body, quickly put in place to support achievement of change". Its associated market development group would support recycling by developing new markets for recylables.
The new board would be asked to advise on the development of a national strategy on bio-degradable organic waste with a view to creating marketable compost products from this waste and support the development of widespread home composting.
Mr Dempsey said market development was crucial to recycling. In this regard, he regretted last year's closure of the Ispat Irish Steel plant in Cork Harbour and the recent bad news about Irish Glass. However, many businesses were turning to recycled materials.
The Minister announced that a National Waste Prevention Programme would be implemented by the Environmental Protection Agency to eliminate production waste by industries subject to ingrated pollution control licensing. The policy statement places emphasis on producer responsibility for waste. In addition to the recycling of packaging and farm plastics, this will be extended to end-of-life vehicles, electrical and electronic equipment, builders' rubble, tyres and newspapers.
"Prevention is better than cure. We need to eliminate waste from the earliest stages of resource extraction and production. We also need to ensure that manufactured products are more easily recycled and more environmentally friendly if they are discarded", he said.
Thanking the public and retailers for their positive response to the 15 cent levy on plastic bags, he stressed that the revenue it generated - as well as the revenue from the landfill levy - would go to a new Environment Fund to support a range of programmes.
"I have already pledged a very significant proportion of funding from the landfill levy to support dedicated and measurable enforcement initiatives aimed at controlling fly-tipping and unauthorised waste activities" - such as the illegal dumps in Co Wicklow.
His priorities had always been waste minimisation, re-use, recycling and finally disposal. "Yet the debate in Ireland has all too often descended into arguments about incineration or landfilling. We have got to re-focus, to get back to basics", Mr Dempsey declared.
