A recycling centre in Cork.
Cork County Council is to resume taking timber waste at its civic amenity sites in the coming months, a council official confirmed.
The local authority stopped taking the material during 2025 because a contraction in the waste timber market nationwide had made it difficult to find outlets that would accept it.
“So there has been a recent contraction in waste timber nationwide. The good news on that is that at present there seems to be some opening of the markets. And we’re looking at perhaps reinstating this service shortly, in the next couple of months,” Ger Barry, Director of Services in the Environment Services section, told this week’s meeting of the council’s Western Division.
“We’re addressing the backlog of material that has built up and that is being progressed at the moment. So we will have a further update in relation to the acceptance of timber at the community amenity sites shortly,” he said.
Councillors welcomed the news, having previously raised concerns that with nowhere else for it to go, the waste timber would be dumped or burned. “I very much welcome the timber being taken back in the recycling centres in the coming months, it’s a thing that we’ve all been contacted about. It’s very important that it is going to be put back into good use and it won’t be burnt because I know there is a bit of that going on out there as well and we don’t want to see that,” Cllr Daniel Sexton said.
Cllr John Michael Foley described the timber recycling ban as “a major problem across the board where it’s being dumped in corners of the yards and building up and other rubbish being added to it, and that’s worrying” while Cllr Danny Collins said that “a lot of construction workers were on to me, they were finding it hard to store and were waiting for it to be brought back to the civic amenity sites so I welcome that.”
Mr Barry stressed that the county council’s twelve civic amenity sites are primarily intended for domestic users rather than commercial ones. “We will provide an update shortly in relation to when the sites will be accepting timber. The priority there will be for domestic users and I think that’s important to note, that’s the real purpose of these civic amenity sites,” he said.
Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.