THE Minister for the Environment has warned private companies which fail to join an approved industry recycling scheme will be required to take back thousands of tonnes of packaging waste.
Some 2,000 companies which produce more than 25 tonnes of packaging annually - such as aluminium cans, glass bottles and paper or plastic containers - will be affected by draft regulations on waste published yesterday by Mr Howlin.
"In Irish terms, these proposals are unprecedented in their scope," he declared. "Recycling will no longer be a peripheral activity, but an integral part of how industry, business and consumers must interact."
Exemption from most of the new obligations will only be given to companies participating in an approved scheme for the collection and recovery of packaging waste - notably REPAK, the company set up last year by IBEC.
Otherwise, packaging companies or retail outlets would have to display notices indicating the waste they generate will be taken back or that such waste will be collected on request, to achieve a 40 per cent recycling target.
The essential aim of the draft packaging regulations, which take effect in May after consultations with the EU Commission, is to ensure companies will be more enthusiastic about supporting REPAK.
Describing the publication as a "landmark occasion for waste management in Ireland", Mr Howlin said the measures were "designed to encourage widespread participation by consumers and suppliers in the recycling of packaging waste".
Packaging now accounts for 400,000 tonnes of all municipal waste, a quarter of the total and it was also the subject of a specific EU directive which required the achievement of "ambitious" recycling targets, said Mr Howlin.
The Government could have imposed the new regulations without seeking industry's co-operation, but he said evidence from other EU countries showed that voluntary industry-led recycling schemes had achieved good results.
Nonetheless, he had to be "alive to the danger" that such schemes could be undermined by lack of participation. He was determined there would be fair play on a "level playing field" and that there would be "no laggards".
Mr Tony Prendergast, chairman of REPAK, said industry "accepts its share of responsibility for packaging waste", which was "a great scourge on the environment". REPAK was industry's solution to meeting its obligations.
However, he stressed that it offered industry an exemption from the regulations, rather than a "free ride". There was now "no excuse whatsoever for not making rapid progress" in achieving the targets set for REPAK.
Its newly appointed chief executive, Mr Andrew Hetherington, said one of its key tasks would be to develop markets for recycled waste. At present, recycling has been badly hit by a fall in the price of raw materials, such as plastic.
Mr Hetherington, a Scot with a background in the UK plastics industry, was appointed to head REPAK nearly a year after the initiative was first announced by IBEC. Its target is to recycle 120,000 tonnes of packaging waste by 2001.
A statement from IBEC said many companies individually would find compliance with the regulations "extremely onerous". REPAK was "an innovative approach to meeting environmental targets on a collective, voluntary basis", it added.
