The issue of waste disposal has come to dominate environmental politics in Ireland and rightly so given the huge volumes that are now produced annually by industrial and domestic sources. Legislation, in the form of the Waste Management Bill, is being enacted to regulate it so that Ireland can fulfill its obligations under the EU waste directives. Yesterday a voluntary initiative was launched jointly by the Irish Business and Employers Confederation (IBEC) and the Minister for the Environment, Mr Howlin, for recycling packaging waste. It is a welcome and innovative start to tackling a growing problem, which gives those responsible for producing waste an important but flexible responsibility for disposing of it within the framework of the law.
Mr Howlin emphasised this point yesterday, saying that industry must deliver on its undertaking to achieve a 25 per cent rate of recycling waste by the year 2001, if it is to avoid mandatory measures. IBEC is setting up a firm, Repak, to operate the scheme and is to introduce a ievy scheme to finance it. Much of the effort will be devoted to the recovery of commercial waste, including packaging waste from supermarkets, offices, factories and agriculture. But there is also a welcome commitment to extend the bring and collect systems of domestic waste recycling, such as the highly successful Kerbside scheme that has been operating in parts of south Dublin. Within the framework of levies and subsidies there is ample opportunity for small businesses to develop means of collecting and recyling waste in a new entrepreneurial environmentalism.
For all that, this State is still faced with a colossal task of disposing of the remaining 75 per cent of packaging waste by landfill or incineration - not to mention the other sources of waste produced by an industrialised society wedded to consumerism. Public pressure against landfill and toxic incineration facilities has become severe, as can be seen in regular protests against proposed and existing sites. It is therefore not surprising that criticisms should be directed against selfregulatory plans such as were announced yesterday on the grounds that they do not tackle the fundamental issue of the over production of waste, instead of loading the problem onto recyling or disposal. This goes to the core of the problem, raising important conflicts of interest between producers and consumers, and highlighting the value systems thrown up by the packaging of commodities.
Ireland is substantially behind the rest of the most developed states in the European Union in its commitment to waste disposal. Relative underdevelopment produces a paradox in which packaging is mistaken for the substance of wealth, which simultaneously destroys the environment that attracts so many people as tourists to our shores as so many of them remark when they come here. These new regulations are yet another example of the modernisation of attitudes as a result of EU pressure. While they are a welcome start, it must be admitted that they are the very minimum required. They must be built upon by public and private authorities alike, as well as by campaigning organisations in coming years, rather than become token commitments to environmental protection.