A staggering €445,000 is spent dealing with illegal dumping and litter in Laois, it has been revealed.
Sinn Féin TD Brian Stanley introduced a new Bill in the Dáil this week called the Waste Reduction Bill 2017, during which he addressed Taoiseach Leo Varadkar on the issue.
“The throwaway habits cannot continue. We need to deal with waste because it is having a detrimental effect on the countryside and on streets, rivers and oceans,” he said.
Also included in the Sinn Féin Bill is a provision for an increase in fines for illegal dumping. “Our local Councils spend millions each year cleaning up illegal dumping. In Laois €445,000 is spent dealing with illegal dumping and litter and this could be better spent on other needs in the county,” he said.
“There is also the environmental cost of greenhouse gas emissions in production, as well as the immense cost for local authorities each year to clean up litter.
“We have to move away from our single-use, throwaway society. We are talking about measures that will create jobs, as they did in Sweden and Finland and many other countries which are 30 years ahead of us.
Mountain
“The comprehensive Bill I am introducing seeks to deal with our ever-growing waste mountain,” Deputy Stanley said.
“We need to take a stronger approach to waste management in society. There are various elements to our Bill today that will directly deal with waste management.
“We are proposing that a deposit recycling scheme should be established and that a levy should be imposed on the industry to establish this system. How it would work would be that a deposit will be applied when certain drinks containers are purchased. Under this proposal, when a drinks container is returned to the recycling unit, the deposit can then be redeemed. Such schemes operate successfully in other countries.
“We are not talking about a cost on the Exchequer here. We are talking about a circular economy for waste, where the benefit comes back to the householder, industry and the environment. The objective is to encourage the return of containers such as glass bottles, plastic bottles and aluminium cans,” he said.
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