Brown bins to be rolled out to all households in Ireland
The Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, Eamon Ryan, has signed new legislation which means that every household in the State will be provided with a brown bin for food waste and light garden waste by their waste collector.
These changes will enable all households with access to a waste collection service to segregate their waste, minimise the amount of waste that goes to landfill, and reuse waste through measures such as recycling, composting or anaerobic digestion, thereby making a positive contribution to our national recycling rates.
Welcoming the regulations, Minister Ryan said: “A recently published study by the EPA showed that 21% of the contents of the household residual waste bins was food and garden waste, which could be placed into the brown bin instead, helping to reduce costs for the householder and ensuring that less emitting waste is sent to our landfills. The added bonus of the brown bin is that the organic waste can also be used to make compost, which in turn can be used to help green our towns and cities naturally.
“We cannot continue to make, use and throw away. By moving to a circular economy and re-using and recycling as much as possible, we can reduce material use and waste, and put it to better use where possible.
“The brown bin is part of a range of new actions being taken by the Government to incentivise people and businesses to reduce and recycle their waste, such as allowing soft plastics in the household recycling bin, the launch of a Deposit Return Scheme from February 2024 for plastic bottles and aluminium cans, and the introduction of mandatory segregation for commercial waste.”
Ireland faces challenging targets under the EU Waste Framework Directive for recycling municipal solid waste (MSW) of 55% by 2025, 60% by 2030 and 65% by 2035. Despite the significant efforts made by many households to better manage their waste, our MSW recycling rate has remained relatively static in recent years and was just 41% in 2021.
The Regional Waste Management Planning Offices, on behalf of all 31 local authorities, has already commenced a media campaign to help raise awareness of the changes and this will continue in the new year. MyWaste.ie also provides households with an invaluable source of advice and tips on how to manage waste in a more sustainable manner, including information on home composting.