SUMMER FOCUS

The price of a cup of coffee is often used as a metric or indicator of how expensive a city or country might be, as well as an indicator of disposable wealth in a given society. The price of a takeaway coffee in Ireland looks set to increase in the near future, at least for those who choose to spend some of their wealth on a disposable cup. The Circular Economy Bill has recently been approved by cabinet and amongst the many changes that this new legislation will bring is a ‘small charge’ on disposable cups for takeaway coffee. If you took up regular walks within your 2km or 5km during the Covid-19 period you’d have seen how frequent an item the takeaway cup is among Ireland’s roadside litter. If you’ve kept up the walking habit, you’ll have noticed (no doubt with dismay) how these have increased as we’ve made our way back to business and travel as usual. A bane of Tidy Towns and other groups, disposable takeaway cups have only recently been made more environmentally friendly with a significant proportion now being compostable or recyclable. How they might or might not break down isn't the point of the forthcoming legislation. Rather, it is stopping these cups being waste at all that is the aim. Minister of State with responsibility for Communications and Circular Economy Ossian Smyth described it thus: “This bill aims to stop the wasteful pattern of using valuable resources once and just binning them.” He likens some provisions of the bill to those measures that introduced a charge for single-use plastic bags and led to a dramatic decrease in the plastic litter and waste all over the country. Tidy Towns groups will also be cheered by another aspect of the bill that will help to crack down on fly-tipping. The state’s obligations under GDPR had heretofore stymied efforts to bring successful prosecutions against illegal dumpers, "THE GOVERNMENT HAS DESCRIBED THE CIRCULAR ECONOMY BILL AS ‘WORLDeven those that had been caught on camera and recorded carrying out illegal activity. Now, GDPRLEADING’ AND THIS IS compliant technologies, PROBABLY NOT A GRANDIOSE including CCTV will be CLAIM. IN MANY WAYS, IT used to enforce our litter

IS THE FIRST OF ITS KIND, JUST AS THE ‘PLASTIC BAG TAX’ WAS A WORLD-FIRST and waste legislation. On a bigger scale, the Circular Economy Bill will have long-lasting effects on AROUND 20 YEARS AGO". our emissions and our country’s overall carbon footprint. It will effectively put an end to any further exploration and mining of coal, lignite and shale. This will bolster Ireland’s existing moratorium on gas exploration and extraction, meaning an end to any new fossil fuels arising within our territory.

Irish householders are now well-used to sorting waste at home as well as paying by weight for waste disposal and at the same time subsidising our now highly successful recycling of household waste. The new legislation will see a similar system brought in for commercial waste arisings. Companies will be incentivised to increase separation of waste and to increase the proportion of waste materials that are recycled. This should reward organisations that perform better at managing their waste and go a long way toward encouraging others to improve.

The bill will provide ways by which reused and recycled materials may be better processed. For example, instead of new stone or gravel being extracted for use as infill or building materials, the system will be better organised to accommodate the use of reused construction materials. This would be a major saving in not just ground-won resources but also in the energy costs and carbon emissions that are incurred in their extraction.

A crucial feature of this new legislation will be the introduction of new levies on waste that is sent for incineration or landfill here in Ireland. Levies will also be placed on waste materials that will be sent abroad, whether within the EU or outside states. These funds will assist in paying for the implementation of the bill’s measures as well as being a potent incentive to avoid waste in the first place.

The proposed legislation has been well-received by waste-conscious NGOs. VOICE has praised its ‘very good provisions’ such as the use of CCTV to catch litter louts. The Rediscovery Centre in Ballymun has said that it is particularly timely and will positively impact citizens and businesses in their everyday lives.

The government has described the Circular Economy Bill as ‘world-leading’ and this is probably not a grandiose claim. In many ways, it is the first of its kind, just as the ‘plastic bag tax’ was a world-first around 20 years ago. When the new bill was announced in the media, it was the tax on takeaway coffee cups that made the headlines. Written in there too though is the aim of doing away with these disposable single-use items altogether. That would make Ireland the first country to have done so. Not a bad ambition.

However, there could be many other positives arising from this, including the incorporation of better design and manufacture in everything from clothing to road surfacing. The most significant achievement though would perhaps be the longterm reduction in our emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases. We won’t be just improving our roadsides, we’ll be making a difference much further afield.