New funding for recycling councils
€46m was today put aside for local authorities who operated recycling facilities.
Minister for the Environment John Gormley said the tranche of funding would offset the operational costs associated with recycling bring banks and civic amenity facilities.
Mr Gormley said grant allocations would be based on a combination of weighted tonnage and net operating costs between January to June 2007, with particular emphasis given to the higher costs of dealing with certain waste streams such as plastics.
The funding will be part of the Environment Fund programme, established with the revenues from the Plastic Bag Levy introduced in March 2002 and the Landfill Levy introduced in July 2002.
“The funding is being paid on the basis of the information provided by local authorities on the costs and the level of recycling and recovery achieved in these six months,” he said.
“We all have a role to play in managing our waste in the most environmentally friendly way possible.
“It is clear that Irish people are willing to act collectively in tackling our waste issues and will use recycling facilities when they are provided. I am committed to playing my part in terms of providing supporting funding and am confident of seeing further progress in this regard.”
This Christmas an additional 80,000 tonnes of waste or 170 million used packaging containers will be collected, with 23,000 tonnes of cardboard and paper packaging generated alone. If all the glass wine and beer bottles we consume were laid out end to end they would stretch a distance of over 9,000 kilometres.
Meanwhile, the minister said the start of the five-year commitment to the Kyoto Protocol tomorrow was an historic moment for the world.
“This is an important step, but it has taken almost 16 years of intensive international effort to get this far and much more needs to be done if the world is to avoid the worst effects of climate change,” he added.
“Ireland will contribute to the success of the Kyoto Protocol by meeting our greenhouse gas target over the 2008-2012 commitment period and by supporting more stringent global emission reduction targets in the period to 2020 and beyond.”
Under the Protocol, the industrialised countries of the world (other than the United States) have agreed to reduce their aggregate greenhouse gas emissions by at least 5% below 1990 levels in the commitment period 2008-2012. Ireland’s contribution to this objective is to limit average national greenhouse gas emissions over the five years to no more than 13% above 1990 levels.
