A national biodegradable waste strategy produced by RPS Consulting Engineers and recently announced by the Irish Minister for the Environment, Dick Roche, aims to divert 80% (1.8 million tonnes/year) of paper, food and garden waste away from landfill by 2016.

Conall Boland, Technical Director with RPS (left), with Minister Dick Roche and Percy Foster of Cré, The Composting Association of Ireland, at the launch of the national strategy.

The strategy is based on the integrated waste management approach established as Irish Government policy since the publication of Changing Our Ways in 1998. The preferred options for dealing with biodegradable municipal waste are:

• Prevention and minimisation – avoiding generating the waste.
• Recycling – mainly of paper and cardboard but also of textiles.
• Biological treatment – mainly of kitchen and garden waste including composting.
• Residual treatment – thermal treatment with energy recovery or by way of mechanical-biological treatment (followed by further treatment).

The strategy sets specific objectives for the contributions that each of these measures will make to the achievement of the 2016 target. Under the strategy, collection services for kitchen and garden waste will be introduced in most large urban areas – and large-scale biological treatment facilities will be established.

About 1.29 million tonnes of biodegradable municipal waste arose in Ireland during 1995. The 2016 goal is to reduce the amount of such waste sent to landfill to 35% of the 1995 amount. Interim targets for waste diversion away from landfill have been established – by 2010 the amount of waste going to landfill can only be 75% of the amount produced in 1995, and by 2013 this must fall to 50% of the 1995 level.

On the basis of projected increases in waste arisings over the same period, it is estimated that to achieve these percentage reduction targets it will be necessary to divert 1.4 million tonnes in 2010, 1.7 million tonnes in 2013 and 1.8 million tonnes in 2016.

At the strategy launch event, Dick Roche said:

“Landfill has always been our first reaction to dealing with biodegradable municipal waste – now it must become our last resort. The past few years have seen dramatic progress in improving our recycling performance with more households having separate collections for dry recyclables, more bring-banks and recycling centres. We now need to build on that success by diverting more and more biodegradable municipal waste – that's wood, paper and textiles as well garden and kitchen waste arising in the home or the workplace – from landfill over the next decade. The strategy being launched here today provides a blueprint for how this can be achieved.”

Conall Boland, Technical Director of RPS Consulting Engineers commented:

“We are delighted that the published strategy retains the emphasis on separation of organic waste arising from domestic and business sources. Ireland is aiming to create high quality compost with a variety of end-use markets – so ensuring effective collection systems is an essential prerequisite. There is a lot of work to be done in developing the biological waste treatment facilities in all regions. The strategy will also see investment by the Irish Government in compost quality standards and market development measures – which is welcomed.”

For further information contact:
RPS office in Dun Laoghaire
Tel: +353 1202 0870