Consumers could face higher waste charges after a Government-commissioned report recommended increasing landfill and recovery levies.<\/p>\n
The long-awaited report said the two levies should each “gradually increase” by \u20ac100 per tonne and acknowledged the costs would eventually be passed on to householders.<\/p>\n
It recommended the introduction of incentivised charging to encourage separation of waste and recycling.<\/p>\n
The report by consultancy Tetra Tech said there was a “persistent gap” between Ireland’s recycling rates and its targets.<\/p>\n
It said Ireland was falling far short of its EU targets, recycling just 1.3 million tonnes of the 3.1 million tonnes of municipal waste generated in 2023.<\/p>\n
This left the State exposed to infringement proceedings, possible fines, as well as other environmental and economic costs.<\/p>\n
“Against this backdrop, Government must determine whether Ireland’s current municipal waste collection model is capable of delivering the required step-change in performance, or whether more fundamental reform is required to ensure targets are achieved,” the report said.<\/p>\n
It acknowledged that increasing levies and introducing incentivised charging for separation of waste could have “high short term political sensitivity unless communication is exceptional.”<\/p>\n
However, it said a “do nothing” approach while politically stable was environmentally untenable and that Ireland would fail to meet its targets.<\/p>\n
It recommended following what was described as Scenario 2, which would include higher levies and enforced separate collection of recyclables and organic waste.<\/p>\n
It said this could help Ireland meet a target of 65% recycling by 2035 and lead to a significant fall in greenhouse gas emissions.<\/p>\n
The report said the increased levies would be “passed through to consumers over time.”<\/p>\n
It said that this could hit certain groups harder – multi-unit dwellings with shared bins, rural households with “limited provider options” and households with “limited storage capacity for multiple bins.”<\/p>\n
The report also outlined how the country’s bin collection market was becoming increasingly dominated by a small number of companies.<\/p>\n
“Entry costs remain high and uncertain, particularly for new entrants needing to acquire customers and establish collection networks,” it explained.<\/p>\n
The report said a single waste company held a market share of more than 50% in 16 counties.<\/p>\n
In Co Longford, one waste firm served 96% of households while in Fingal in Dublin, one operator held 82% of the market.<\/p>\n
The report said the number of rubbish collectors nationally had fallen from 73 in 2015 to just 47 by 2024.<\/p>\n
“Rising compliance costs, investment requirements, and market pressures have contributed to this trend,” it added.<\/p>\n
Reporting by Ken Foxe<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Consumers could face higher waste charges after a Government-commissioned report recommended increasing landfill and recovery levies. The long-awaited…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":670462,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,61,60],"class_list":["post-670461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=670461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670461\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/670462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=670461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=670461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=670461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}