EU recycling target achieved three years early
Ireland has reached its EU target on recycling three years ahead of schedule, according to Repak.
The organisation says 713,000 tonnes of waste was recycled in Ireland last year, a 9.5% increase on the previous year.
Repak says Ireland now recycles around two-thirds of all packaging, with each household putting an average of more 140kgs of waste in their green bins last year.
In 2008, Irish householders recycled almost 10% more used packaging than in 2007 equating to 144kg per household or 50kg per person, according to packaging recycling scheme Repak.
In total over €28.1m was spent recycling 713,000 tonnes with householders making up 30% or 212,000 tonnes of total used packaging recycled in 2008.
The total amount of packaging recycled equates to 356,406 truckloads or almost 26 million green bins of used packaging.
This also resulted in the equivalent savings of 536,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions or the equivalent of taking more than 173,000 cars off the road.
The recycling figures, which are available on www.repak.ie, also showed that for the first time domestic recycling through household recycling collection systems grew by 26% to more than 107,000 tonnes and over took recycling collected through bring facilities (both bring banks and recycling centres), which stands at 105,000 tonnes.
The figures also showed that cardboard and paper packaging continues to be the most recycled item at 47%, followed jointly by wood and glass at 18% each, plastic at 9% and metals coming in at 8%.
