All households will be entitled to a brown bin recycling service under new legislation, which will come into effect next Monday, New Year’s day.
Currently, around 69% of households in Ireland have a brown bin and people who have up until now not been able to avail of the service are being urged to contact their waste collector to organise one.
However, householders who do not want a brown bin will have to provide a written explanation of how they plan to dispose of their food waste.
Secretary of the Irish Waste Management Association Conor Walsh explained that it is an amendment of an existing regulation that has been in place for about 10 years.
“Up until now, people in urban areas, towns, villages, cities have been entitled to brown bin, and most people have taken a brown bin, and that’s going to be extended now to all of Ireland – to the rural areas as well, which is about 400,000 more people.”
Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, he said it will be phased in beginning on 1 January, “it won’t happen overnight, on the 1st of January.”
He said that people need to understand that “it’s not a lifestyle choice, the brown bin, it’s a legal obligation.
“There’s a lot of reasons why we need to segregate food waste and people may not know that we make compost out of it, we make bio-gas out of it and the bio-gas replaces the fossil fuel gas. Compost replaces peat.
“So environmentally, it’s very, very important that we segregate the food waste.” (8.30)
Mr Walsh said the legislation was only finalised with the waste companies about a week ago and it will be phased in over the next few months.
He said that up until now the legal obligation has been only on food waste, “but it’s extending to garden waste. And that’s across the country. So, we have to provide garden waste collections and that’s once a month – minimum once a month from March to October.” (8.31)
He added that a lot of people already have garden waste collections in the form of a large brown bin.
“But there are about 150,000 houses in the country that have a caddy rather than a bin. It’s just just for food waste only.
“So, for those customers, they will be entitled to have a garden waste collection at least monthly. But they will pay for it. It’s not a free service.” (8.31)
He said that the waste company will contact people about the brown bin to let their customers know what is coming.
“There’s an awful lot of people who have brown bins who are not using brown bins. And that’s a real important issue because people need to know it’s illegal to put your food waste in any other bin.
“So, they’re putting food waste in the general waste bin. And we know there is food waste, a lot of food waste in the general waste bin and also in the recycling bin, that’s illegal. And people really need to use the brown bin”. (8.32)
