Press release
Brown bins to be rolled out to all households in Ireland
From Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications
Published on
Last updated on
From Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications
Published on
Last updated on
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, have 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.
The EPA Waste Characterisation Study can be found on the EPA website.
Further details on Ireland’s municipal waste statistics can be found on the EPA website.
ENDS
The new legislation delivers on commitments in our national waste policy, A Waste Action Plan for a Circular Economy, and are also in line with the requirement in the Waste Framework Directive that, “by 31 December 2023 and subject to Article 10(2) and (3), bio-waste [food waste or garden waste] is either separated and recycled at source, or is collected separately and is not mixed with other types of waste”.
The European Union (Household Food Waste and Bio-waste) (Amendment) Regulations 2023 come into effect on 31 December 2023. These regulations will require all waste collectors to provide their customers with a residual waste bin, a mixed dry recyclables bin and now a “brown bin” for their food and light garden waste.
The regulations introduce a number of new requirements, including:
It will remain a commercial decision for companies to decide whether to provide separate food waste and garden waste collections or to collect material co-mingled.
Delivering a circular economy will have positive environmental, economic and social impacts. Across Europe, countries are moving towards and adopting circular economy practices. The EU is pursuing its ‘European Green Deal’ strategy, which has the circular economy at its heart. In March 2020, the EU launched its Second Circular Economy Action Plan.
At the national level, Ireland published its first whole-of-Government Circular Economy Strategy in December 2021 to ensure policy coherence across the public sector and to outline the government’s overall approach to the circular economy for stakeholders and the public.
The Circular Economy Act 2022 goes further — by translating this policy approach into a statutory requirement. It will also provide the necessary statutory underpinning to a range of actions that will strengthen waste enforcement in relation to illegal dumping and littering, for example, by allowing for the GDPR-compliant use of CCTV and other technologies in enforcement actions. The Circular Economy Strategy provides a national policy framework for Ireland’s transition to a circular economy. This Act places that Strategy, and the commitment to a circular economy, on a clear statutory footing. The National Circular Economy Programme (operated by the EPA) will be placed on the same statutory basis.
The circular economy is not a new idea; in fact many circular activities are already commonplace. However, achieving the full benefits requires more than action at individual level; it requires the right mix of government policy and regulation, new business models and new systems of production. It also requires education and awareness.
Find out more about the Circular Economy on the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications website.