For any company whose activities are associated with large volumes of packaging, the days of dumping it at the nearest landfill are gone.

There is the option of paying others to remove it with the hope it will be disposed of with minimal environmental consequences or recycled appropriately. The retail group Brown Thomas thought differently, was distinctly unhappy with letting others do it and decided it would oversee the management of its packaging waste.

The complexities of the EU Waste Management (Packaging) Regulations, 1997, do not translate into simple solutions any more. The intention is to reduce total volumes of waste going to landfill. Waste packaging has been targeted because of its large volume, its high visibility and because it can be easily recycled, where appropriate facilities exist. For Brown Thomas, the scale of the problem is indicated by having in 1998 to handle 685 metric tonnes of "received packaging" i.e. it came with product arriving at its back door, while 440 tonnes of "supplied packaging" went out the front door with customers.

The new regulations concentrated minds, said Brown Thomas managing director Mr Paul Kelly. In 1998, Dublin Corporation concentrated them further by curtly spelling out their implications. Companies generating large amounts of waste must either join Repak, the Government-industry initiative set up to handle waste management on a co-operative basis, or have their own local authority-approved system in place. "Nobody in our industry was adhering to the law," he recalled.

The corporation then threatened to summon Brown Thomas and others, as they were not part of Repak and had not a "self-compliant" scheme in place. Having been introduced to Mr Brendan Keane of Cara Environmental Technology (CET), a working group was set up to examine options. Paying Repak a fee and handing over responsibility to them, Mr Kelly agreed, was a form of instant absolution which did not sit well with the company's vision, though self-compliance was clearly more onerous and costly. Repak was invited to pitch for the business. After one meeting, Brown Thomas was convinced about going it alone. The process of drawing up a waste management plan began. Summonses to appear in court, nonetheless, arrived. The company claimed the Act did not allow the corporation (though enforcer of the legislation) to prosecute an indictable offence at District Court level and won; a decision the local authority is appealing. The Government will be forced to amend several Acts as a similar argument with the Planning Act succeeded in a previous, unrelated case - also subject to appeal.

The court outcome coincided with Brown Thomas submitting its application to be allowed to go down the self-compliant route. The corporation accepted it, and the company was the first in the Republic to have a local authority-approved system. Having successfully negotiated this route, however, Brown Thomas believes the regulations were introduced haphazardly. "If you want somebody to do something, you should come in and sit down and say this is what I would like you to do. This is how you do it. Talk it through," Mr Kelly said.

Its scheme involves segregation of paper/cardboard, glass, plastic, wood, steel, textiles and aluminium. Paper/cardboard is baled for "recovery" (reprocessing or recycling for reuse as the same or other product). Plastics and textiles are baled for disposal by incineration or landfill. Polystyrene pellets, wood pallets, steel bars, aluminium and clothes hangers are all re-used.

The company goes to considerable expense to segregate but there is often a big question mark - "now what happens to it?" Paper/cardboard recycling can be at the whim of markets. There is always concern that having segregated it, it could find its way to a rubbish skip or landfill due to an absence of recycling facilities - so Brown Thomas pays additional money to have it recycled.

Mr Brendan Keane of CET underlines the need for a strong rather than an often fragmented market for recovered waste. We have stringent EU laws saying "all these things have to be done" but this may be putting the cart before the horse. The Republic has not had a proper debate on the role of incineration, he noted. We have no waste-to-energy plants capable of supplying steam/heat or electricity - as evident across Europe - though Irish volumes can be so small they cannot sustain a recycling industry.

There may be "all this beautifully segregated waste" throughout the State but it does not reach recovery stage, confirming the Republic is far behind much of Europe. Equally if all waste producers decided to recycle, capacity does not exist (though the infrastructural shortfall is being made-up) and the market is not there for it. This made Brown Thomas conclude the new regulations were implemented primarily because the Republic must be seen to be doing something about its packaging waste.

Mr Kelly added: "We are a fairly big retail organisation, responsible in our duties to the business, to the environment and the city we are in, and nobody has come and sat down to get our views in getting the right answers."

He knows the totality of the problem is not solved. Undaunted, his company is talking to suppliers, "finding other ways of delivering goods to us". China now comes in plastic containers, which go back to suppliers to be reused. BT has achieved a rate of some 70 per cent in terms of sending packaging coming through its back door for recovery/re-use. By last month, it was 40 per cent for that going out its front door; a figure, it says, is not being matched elsewhere.

CET helps Brown Thomas audit waste handling procedures; arrange waste recovery/disposal; report monthly to the corporation; and evaluate waste recovery/disposal operators. Checks are made to ensure material is recycled when there is a commitment to do so. It advises on waste minimisation and increasingly demanding waste legislation - staff are trained on the company's obligations while customers are invited to return packaging.

What of plastic bags? Brown Thomas has looked at the alternatives and already uses a lot of paper bags but feels high-density plastic bags, which it uses, are not those littering roadsides. Equally, a surcharge on them might be a good source of Government revenue but reduced use is not a logical consequence of this, Mr Kelly said.

Self-compliance is a lot more demanding environmentally but Brown Thomas was under no illusions. It was not viewed as a pounds and pence issue but something a business should bear. Mr Kelly said he is not anti-Repak but "the good idea" has to be seen to work and followed through with customers to ensure they get behind it. He does not classify Repak among those attempting to beat down his door daily with new products and services under its arm. Going it alone has been the right route for Brown Thomas: "We are in control of what we are doing, and controlling the waste we are generating, and doing it the right way."