{"id":89743,"date":"2025-09-27T23:24:19","date_gmt":"2025-09-27T23:24:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/89743\/"},"modified":"2025-09-27T23:24:19","modified_gmt":"2025-09-27T23:24:19","slug":"more-than-half-of-daily-waste-generated-in-ireland-burned-or-sent-to-landfill-epa-says-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/89743\/","title":{"rendered":"More than half of daily waste generated in Ireland burned or sent to landfill, EPA says \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

More than half of Ireland\u2019s daily household and business waste is burned or sent to landfill and there has been no improvement in recycling rates for a decade, according to a new report. <\/p>\n

The Environmental Protection Agency<\/a> (EPA) said a further 400,000 tonnes of municipal waste must be recycled annually for Ireland to meet its mandatory recycling targets. <\/p>\n

However, the amount of packaging waste<\/a> \u2013 such as containers, boxes and wrappers \u2013 has grown four times faster than recycling rates since 2016. <\/p>\n

The torrent of waste Ireland generates creates challenges not only for its management<\/a>, but also for meeting obligations under EU regulations. <\/p>\n

The State is supposed to recycle 55 per cent of municipal waste, but the rate now stands at 42 per cent. <\/p>\n

A specific target for packaging waste requires 65 per cent to be recycled, but the rate is 59 per cent. <\/p>\n

Plastic packaging is particularly problematic, with the target set at 50 per cent but with just 30 per cent being recycled and the remaining 70 per cent incinerated. <\/p>\n

David Flynn, EPA director of environmental sustainability<\/a>, said waste volumes must fall and recycling must increase. <\/p>\n

\u201cIreland\u2019s waste generation is too high,\u201d he said. \u201cIreland needs to make measurable progress on stalled recycling rates and reduce overall consumption.\u201d <\/p>\n

[\u00a0How spending two minutes picking up plastic on the beach can make a big differenceOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The EPA figures, published on Wednesday, relate to 2023 when 3.13 million tonnes of municipal waste were generated from the everyday activities of homes, shops, schools and offices. <\/p>\n

That represents a tiny reduction on 2022 but a 16 per cent increase since 2016. <\/p>\n

Of those 3.13 million tonnes, 1.3 million were recycled as materials or compost and another 1.3 million tonnes were incinerated. <\/p>\n

Incineration is sometimes termed waste recovery as the waste can be burned to produce energy for industry, heat or electricity generation. <\/p>\n

However, a lot of that \u201crecovery\u201d happens outside Ireland as the country exported 1.2 million tonnes of municipal waste, 38 per cent of which was incinerated. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe need investment in recycling infrastructure and to stop exporting a significant amount of our municipal waste to other countries,\u201d Mr Flynn said. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Plastic colonialism: \u2018A stream of plastic debris, stretching miles, is heading towards us\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Around 450,000 tonnes of waste, or 14 per cent, was landfilled \u2013 which is the least environmentally sound method of disposal. <\/p>\n

Although that figure has fallen dramatically from 80 per cent around 20 years ago, it is still well above the 10 per cent target. <\/p>\n

While municipal waste volumes remain high, they are dwarfed by construction waste which reaches 9 million tonnes annually. This comprises materials from demolition works as well as leftovers from construction projects such as metal, wood, glass, plastic, brick, tile, gypsum, tar, stones and soil. <\/p>\n

Most is recycled or used as backfill in roads and foundations, but the volumes are growing: 450,000 tonnes had to be sent abroad for management in 2023. <\/p>\n

\u201cAs the industry grows, companies need to urgently prevent waste and maximise the use of recycled and recyclable products,\u201d said Warren Phelan, the EPA\u2019s circular economy manager. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than half of Ireland\u2019s daily household and business waste is burned or sent to landfill and there…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":89744,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[269],"tags":[18,440,11394,19,17,133,1373],"class_list":{"0":"post-89743","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-environment","10":"tag-environmental-protection-agency-epa","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-science","14":"tag-sustainability"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89743\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}