How to cope with waste, toxic and non-toxic, is a problem coming into sharp focus in communities and neighbourhoods throughout the State.
On Thursday in Cork transition-year students from three city schools will be honoured by the Minister for the Environment and Local Government, Mr Dempsey, for their part in helping to inform the debate and drive it forward.
The students are from Nagle Community College in Mahon, Regina Mundi College, Douglas, and North Presentation Secondary School, Farranree. For the past six months they have been participating in the Research for Schools Project, organised by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The project encourages pupils to choose an environmental project in their own area and research it scientifically, in the process giving them a better understanding of what is happening around them.
Through the project manager, Ms Mary O'Shaughnessy of UCC, they have been equipped with the skills to compile questionnaires, conduct interviews and assess the results.
According to Ms O'Shaughnessy, it has been an exhausting but very worthwhile exercise for the students, giving them and their teachers new insights into how the class dynamic can be harnessed to carry out basic research.
Nagle Community College looked at public attitudes towards litter in Mahon; Regina Mundi students surveyed the buying behaviour in supermarkets in their area and how it could affect packaging waste; and North Presentation examined waste management strategies within the business and industrial sector in the greater Farranree district.
The results of these projects, which involved more than 1,000 interviews, will be handed over to the EPA at a public function in UCC on Thursday, where the Minister will present certificates to the students marking their achievement.
Since its inception on a national scale, more than 700 students have participated in the EPA-sponsored project and about 5,280 members of the public have been interviewed by the young researchers.