For years this State has lagged far behind most of our European counterparts in the field of waste management. Recycling facilities were limited to the odd "bring bank" here or there, or kerbside collection of recyclables if one was fortunate enough to live in particular areas. The vast bulk of our waste was consigned to often poorly-managed landfill sites or illegally dumped in disused quarries, many of them conveniently located in Co Wicklow.
We knew, too, that all of this was unsustainable and that, sooner or later, we would have to face up to the challenge of making a better job of managing the ever-growing volume of waste generated by a consumer society.
A new course was charted in 1998 with the publication of "Changing Our Ways", the Department of the Environment's seminal policy document on this issue. Since then, there has been a significant increase in recycling initiatives and a more focused approach to the provision of waste management infrastructure in general.
The €35 million grant scheme announced yesterday by the Minister for the Environment, Mr Cullen, will help to intensify these efforts by making recycling facilities more widely available so that, as he put it, there could be "no more excuses" for not recycling a much higher proportion of the waste we generate.
Importantly, a further €20 million has been allocated for a range of other waste and environmental measures, including the establishment of a national waste prevention programme, a market development programme for recyclable materials, a new waste awareness campaign and better enforcement of environmental legislation.
The fact that all of this money is coming from revenue gathered for the new Environment Fund by the highly-successful 15 cent tax on plastic supermarket bags and a €19 per tonne landfill levy, both introduced last year, is in itself a neat equation as well as a welcome indication of the value of recycling.
Mr Cullen identified the waste crisis as his most pressing environmental priority when he took office as minister last June. He claimed yesterday that his initiatives would "transform the face of waste management in Ireland." What he is doing, and intends to do, may not quite reach that level of hyperbole, but there can be little doubt that the latest initiative is a step in the right direction.
However, millions more euro will still have to be invested in the next five years to provide disposal facilities, including incinerators and highly engineered landfill sites, in order to deal with the residue of waste.