A new report on how Member States manage their municipal waste shows that Ireland still has a long way to go. The Irish results are remarkably poor in areas such as decoupling of waste from consumption, access to waste collection services and the rate of waste going to landfills. Scoring 19 out of 42 points Ireland ranks 15 out of 27 Member States (by contrast Austria and the Netherlands scored 39 points).

The report grades the Member States against 18 criteria such as total waste recycled, pricing of waste disposal, and infringements of European legislation. The resulting scoreboard forms part of an on-going study that will help Member States improve their waste management performance. Top of the table are Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Germany,  the Netherlands, and Sweden.

Ireland is only one point ahead of the Member States with the largest implementation gaps which are Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Latvia, Malta, Poland, Romania and Slovakia. Failings include poor or non-existent waste prevention policies, a lack of incentives to divert waste from landfills, and inadequate waste infrastructure. Heavy reliance on landfilling means that better waste management options such as re-use and recycling are consistently underexploited. The outlook is accordingly poor.

Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden by contrast have comprehensive waste collection systems and landfill less than 5 % of their waste. They have well developed recycling systems, sufficient treatment capacity, and they perform well with biodegradable waste. Typically, they blend legal, administrative and economic instruments to good effect in their waste management policies.

Environment Commissioner Janez Potocnik says: “The picture that emerges from this exercise confirms my strong concerns. Many Member States are still landfilling huge amounts of municipal waste – the worst waste management option – despite better alternatives, and despite structural funds being available to finance better options. Valuable resources are being buried, potential economic benefits are being lost, jobs in the waste management sector are not being created, and human health and the environment suffer. This is hard to defend in our present economic circumstances.”

The Commission is using this report to prepare Roadmaps for the ten worst performing Member States. These will be discussed with national authorities at bilateral seminars this autumn, starting in Prague on 19 September. The Roadmaps will help spread best practices and will contain tailor-made recommendations on how to improve waste management using economic, legal and administrative tools, and EU structural funds.

The Commission is looking to use EU structural funds with a greater focus on the objectives of EU waste policy. The proposed Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) 2014-2020 will ensure that EU money is only invested in waste management projects if certain conditions are met beforehand, including the development of Waste Management Plans in accordance with the Waste Framework Directive and with the waste hierarchy, favouring prevention, reuse and recycling over incineration with energy recovery, with landfilling or incineration without energy recovery as a last resort.

A recent study prepared for the Commission estimates that full implementation of EU waste legislation would save Eur72 billion a year, increase the annual turnover of the EU waste management and recycling sector by Eur42 billion and create over 400,000 jobs by 2020.

Anaerobic digestion plants that turn waste and purpose grown crops into energy have the potential to power more than 2.5 million UK homes by 2020, a new report by CentreForum suggests. Yet the think tank warns that this vision will only be realised if certain barriers to sector growth and development are removed.

The report ‘Hit the gas’ sets out a number of advantages to expanding the anaerobic digestion sector. It praises anaerobic digestion for generating a multi purpose biogas that is easy to transport and store, and for diverting food waste from landfill.

Anaerobic digestion currently produces around 1.3 TWh of energy in the UK – enough to power 300,000 homes. CentreForum believes that the sector can expand by more than 800 per cent (11 TWh or 2.5 million homes) over the next eight years if the recommendations of its report are followed.

Ed Davey, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, says: “The government is committed to promoting an increase in energy from waste schemes through anaerobic digestion. CentreForum’s report offers some interesting ideas for how this increase can be achieved.”

Report co-author Quentin Maxwell-Jackson comments: “”Anaerobic digestion technology has so many clear advantages over other waste treatment and energy generation options that it is very surprising it has not taken off in a big way yet in theUK. But that is because trying to get an anaerobic digestion scheme up and running at the moment is like trying to win a cycle race with the brakes on.”

The report’s other author Thomas Brooks adds: “There are some simple things government can do to release the brakes on anaerobic digestion. For instance, simply banning organic waste to landfill inEngland, as they are already planning to do in Scotland, would give anaerobic digestion a huge boost.”

Lord Redesdale, Liberal Democrat peer and chairman of the Anaerobic Digestion and Biogas Association (ADBA), says: “CentreForum have shown that anaerobic digestion already represents a significant part of the UK’s renewable energy mix – generating four times more electricity than solar PV – and are pushing for government to support an 800 per cent increase in that generating capacity by 2020.”

Top performing EU Member States have recycling rates of up to 70 % and bury virtually nothing, whilst others still landfill more than three-quarters of their waste. A new report from the European Commission explains that by combining economic instruments the best performers have turned waste from a problem into a resource.

A mix of landfilling and incineration taxes and bans, producer responsibility schemes and pay-as-you-throw prove to be the most effective tools in shifting waste streams to more sustainable paths. If the EU is to meet the objectives set out in the Resource Efficiency Roadmap – zero landfilling, maximising recycling and reuse, and limiting energy recovery to non recyclable waste – these economic instruments will need to be introduced more widely across all Member States.

Experience in the Member States shows that a combination of the following instruments is the best way to improve waste management:

* Landfill and incineration taxes and/or bans – the results of the study are unequivocal: landfilling and incineration rates have decreased in countries where bans or taxes have driven up costs for landfilling and incineration.

* ‘Pay-as-you-throw’ schemes have proved very efficient in preventing waste generation and encouraging citizens to participate in separate waste collection.

* Producer responsibility schemes have allowed several Member States to gather and redistribute the funds necessary to improve separate collection and recycling. But cost-efficiency and transparency vary greatly between Member States and between waste streams, so these schemes need careful planning and monitoring.

There are significant differences in waste management between Member States. According to a Report published by Eurostat, the most advanced six Member States – Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Austria, Sweden and The Netherlands – landfill less than 3 % of their municipal waste. At the other extreme, nine Member States are still landfilling more than 75 % of their municipal waste. Recent statistics published by Eurostat show continuous progress in some new Member States, where recycling rates are increasing rapidly. Municipal waste generation has also decreased in several Member States probably due to the economic downturn.

Replicating these instruments in all Member States will be necessary if the EU is to meet the targets set out in its waste legislation and its targets for resource efficiency. This is why the possibility of making their use legally binding in some cases will be assessed in a 2014 review of EU waste targets. The Commission is also including sound waste management in conditions for receiving certain European funds.

Meanwhile the Commission is encouraging Member States to implement existing waste legislation more effectively. Waste management and recycling industries in the EU had a turnover of Eur145 billion in 2008, representing around 2 million jobs. Full compliance with EU waste policy could create an additional 400,000 jobs within the EU and an extra annual turnover of Eur42 billion. Improved waste management would contribute to achieving several objectives and targets of the Europe 2020 Strategy for smart sustainable and inclusive growth.

In the EU27, 502 kg of municipal waste was generated per person in 2010, while 486 kg of municipal waste was treated per person. This municipal waste was treated in different ways – 38% was landfilled, 22% incinerated, 25% recycled and 15% composted.

The amount of municipal waste generated varies significantly across Member States. Cyprus, with 760 kg per person, had the highest amount of waste generated in 2010, followed by Luxembourg, Denmark and Ireland with values between 600 and 700 kg per person, and the Netherlands, Malta, Austria, Germany, Spain, France, Italy, the United Kingdom and Portugal with values between 500 and 600 kg. Finland, Belgium, Sweden, Greece, Slovenia, Hungary and Bulgaria had values between 400 and 500 kg, while values of below 400 kg per person were recorded in Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland, Estonia and Latvia.

Incineration represents half or more of waste treatment in Denmark and Sweden

The treatment methods differ substantially between Member States. In 2010, the Member States with the highest share of municipal waste landfilled were Bulgaria (100% of waste treated), Romania (99%), Lithuania (94%) and Latvia (91%).

The highest shares of incinerated municipal waste were observed in Denmark (54% of waste treated), Sweden (49%), the Netherlands (39%), Germany (38%), Belgium (37%), Luxembourg (35%) and France (34%). In ten Member States incineration was equal to or below 1%.

Recycling was most common in Germany (45% of waste treated), Belgium (40%), Slovenia (39%), Sweden (36%), Ireland (35%) and the Netherlands (33%). The Member States with the highest composting rates for municipal waste were Austria (40%), the Netherlands (28%), Belgium (22%), Luxembourg (20%), Denmark (19%) and Spain (18%).

Recycling and composting of municipal waste together accounted for 50% of waste treated or more in Austria (70%), Belgium and Germany (both 62%), the Netherlands (61%) and Sweden (50%). In five Member States less than 10% of waste was recycled or composted.

Repak Ireland has welcomed the findings on packaging recycling contained in ‘Environmental Indicators Ireland 2012’, the report just published by the CSO, which highlights Ireland’s ever improving approach to the recycling of packaging. It is part of a detailed piece of research, by the CSO, based around environmental data.

Dr Andrew Hetherington, chief executive of Repak Ireland, comments: “This National Survey clearly demonstrates the success of Ireland’s packaging recycling model with key targets for recovery all being exceeded. The statistics contained in the report, when analysed, confirm Ireland’s progressive performance in packaging recovery and recycling over the past decade and our steady assent up the league table of European Member State performance in this area.”

He adds: “Specifically, it shows that Ireland’s 2011 recovery target of 60% under the EC Packaging Directive (94/62/EC) was achieved and surpassed by 2008 and I can now confirm that we have achieved a 74% recovery rate for 2010.”

The statistics show that by 2009 Ireland was recovering 152Kgs per capita of packaging waste, the third highest in the EC behind Germany and Luxembourg.

“It is also very encouraging to note that the amount of municipal waste sent to landfill had fallen to just below 1.5 million tonnes in 2010, down from some 2 million tonnes in 2007,” he points out. “While a significant portion of this can be attributed to the decline in economic conditions, the increase in recovery of packaging waste, which now accounts for some 59% of municipal waste, had a significant impact here also.”

Repak’s Packaging Prevention Programme was a further factor in the decline of packaging waste generation, as the total level of packaging waste decreased by some 18% between 2007 and 2010. This initiative, which receives financial support from the EPA, involves Repak working with industry to optimise all packaging placed on the Irish market.

Since its inception, Repak has helped to divert in excess of 5.7 million tons of used packaging from landfill sites and has invested over Eur225 million in packaging recycling, growing it from under 15% in 1998.

Nestle Ireland is the first major confectioner to announce its entire Easter egg packaging is 100% recyclable by replacing rigid plastic with cardboard in its mug eggs. With Easter eggs creating 375,000 kilos of waste in Ireland each year, the manufacturer of Smarties, Kit Kat and Aero Easter eggs, has become the first major confectioner to remove plastic packaging from all its eggs – the culmination of a six year process that has saved 726 tonnes of plastic waste going to landfill per year.

The last products to become 100% recyclable were the Yorkie, Munchies and Kit Kat Easter eggs which include a branded mug. The plastic used to secure the mug and egg has been replaced with recyclable cardboard certified by the Forest Stewardship Council and a compostable film for the windows resulting in a 30% reduction in packaging in the mug eggs. In 2011, 100 tonnes of plastic was removed across the entire range in the UK and Ireland.

In Ireland, 636 kg of municipal waste was generated per person in 2010, the fourth highest in the EU. 57% of this waste was landfilled, 4% was incinerated, 35% was recycled and 4% was composted.

In the EU27 overall, 502 kg of municipal waste1 was generated per person in 2010, while 486 kg of municipal waste was treated per person. This municipal waste was treated in different ways3: 38% was landfilled, 22% incinerated, 25% recycled and 15% composted.

The amount of municipal waste generated varies significantly across Member States. Cyprus, with 760 kg per person, had the highest amount of waste generated in 2010, followed by Luxembourg, Denmark and Ireland with values between 600 and 700 kg per person, and the Netherlands, Malta, Austria, Germany, Spain, France, Italy, the United Kingdom and Portugal with values between 500 and 600 kg. Finland, Belgium, Sweden, Greece, Slovenia, Hungary and Bulgaria had values between 400 and 500 kg, while values of below 400 kg per person were recorded in Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland, Estonia and Latvia.

The treatment methods differ substantially between Member States. In 2010, the Member States with the highest share of municipal waste landfilled were Bulgaria (100% of waste treated), Romania (99%), Lithuania (94%) and Latvia (91%).

The highest shares of incinerated municipal waste were observed in Denmark (54% of waste treated), Sweden (49%), the Netherlands (39%), Germany (38%), Belgium (37%), Luxembourg (35%) and France (34%). In ten Member States incineration was equal to or below 1%.

Recycling was most common in Germany (45% of waste treated), Belgium (40%), Slovenia (39%), Sweden (36%), Ireland (35%) and the Netherlands (33%). The Member States with the highest composting rates for municipal waste were Austria (40%), the Netherlands (28%), Belgium (22%), Luxembourg (20%), Denmark (19%) and Spain (18%).

Recycling and composting of municipal waste together accounted for 50% of waste treated or more in Austria (70%), Belgium and Germany (both 62%), the Netherlands (61%) and Sweden (50%). In five Member States less than 10% of waste was recycled or composted.

Envirogreen Recycling is urging Phil Hogan TD, the Minister for Environment, to place a blanket ban on mattresses being land filled. Industry figures indicate that in the region of 800,000 mattresses and beds annually are being sent to landfills throughout the country. According to Envirogreen Recycling 100% of the components of mattress can be recycled if dry and each mattress recycled saves over 23 cubic yards of landfill space.

Mark Smyth, sales director for the company, says that whilst Envirogreen was making great progress with the number of mattresses it was recycling, tough new legislation was required to put Ireland among Europe’s elite recycling nations.

Conor Guy, managing director of Envirogreen, notes that “implementing new regulations to recycle mattresses would create over 750 new positions throughout Ireland for the sector”. Conor Guy also maintains that the recycling of mattresses is the only viable non-landfill option as the steel content of mattresses and the inability to shred the springs, would rule out the recovery of mattresses at the proposed Poolbeg incinerator.

Envirogreen Recycling currently provide a commercial and residential mattress recycling service and in the three months it has operated the service, recycled over 5000 mattresses, on what it describes a “ small marketing budget”. Envirogreen Recycling was named Repak Recycler of the Year in 2011.

The amount of waste from Scottish homes and businesses being landfilled has dropped by almost 36% in the past five years, with the amount of waste generated falling and waste recycling increasing.  Between 2005 and 2009, the total amount of waste generated fell by 22%, according to the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) in its annual Waste Data Digest.

During the same period, the total amount of controlled waste landfilled in Scotland dropped from 7.3 million tonnes in 2005 to 4.7 million tonnes in 2009. The amount of biodegradable waste landfilled fell by 26%, and waste treated by waste management sites in Scotland rose by 30% over the past five years. The amount of household waste recycled and composted grew by 45% between 2005 and 2009.

“The conclusions from these latest figures are very encouraging and show that, as a nation, we are producing less waste, recycling more and landfilling less – all of which is good news for protecting the environment,” says Martin Marsden, head of Environmental Quality at SEPA. “There are still challenges ahead and we must all accept that new services, facilities and, most importantly, changes to our lifestyles will be needed if we are to further prevent, reuse and recycle our waste in Scotland. We will be working with the Scottish Government and Zero Waste Scotland, the waste management industry and Scottish local authorities to help make that happen.”

Greenergy, a privately owned company that supplies one fifth of Britain’s road fuel, has begun producing biodiesel from food waste. In a unique partnership with Brocklesby, a specialist in recycling edible oils, unsaleable food products such as crisps and pies, which would previously have gone to landfill or compost, are now being converted for biofuel and energy production. This new initiative helps to reduce the environmental impact of the fuel that Greenergy produces while also creating a new alternative source of fuel.

Greenergy has invested £50 million in its biodiesel production facility in Immingham on the east coast of England in order to efficiently process used cooking oils, which are more complicated to process than ‘new’ oils such as rapeseed. The company already uses significant quantities (more than 20 million litres a month) of biodiesel from used cooking oil supplied from a range of food producers.

In order to extend its use of waste-based biofuel even further, Greenergy is now beginning to make biodiesel from high fat solid foods such as pies, sausage rolls, pastry and crisps which are not fit for sale because they are mis-shapen, overcooked or past their sell by date. These food products, which typically contain between 25% and 30% oil and fat, are sourced from a variety of food manufacturers nationally. Other suitable foods include taramasalata and oil from fish frying containing high quantities of breadcrumbs.

The oils and fats in these foods are extracted through a novel process developed by Brocklesby and are then further purified by Greenergy. Only then are the oils and fats clean enough to be suitable for conversion into biodiesel. The finished biodiesel is then blended in small quantities into the diesel that Greenergy supplies to petrol stations nationally.

Any food solids that remain after processing are currently dried and then either composted or used to produce energy through anaerobic digestion, but in future could be used to make solid biomass fuel pellets or briquettes, or more fuel for cars in the form of bioethanol. Waste water is used as a biomass crop fertiliser.

“We’ve always tried to find ways of reducing the environmental impact of our fuel and as oil prices continue to rise, it’s obviously important to develop alternative sources of fuel,” comments Andrew Owens, chief executive of Greenergy. “The quantities of biodiesel that we’re currently producing from solid food waste are small, but we’re expecting to scale up so that this soon becomes a significant proportion of our biodiesel.”

A partnership of six newspaper and magazine bodies has been nominated for a prestigious environmental award in recognition of their efforts to reduce waste and increase efficiency in Ireland’s paper supply chain. The Green Press Partnership (GPP), which represents the main newspaper and magazine groups in Ireland, is one of eight finalists in the Supply Chain category of the Green Awards 2011.

The awards are designed to promote sustainability and ‘green best practice’ among organisations and individuals. The Green Supply Chain Award is awarded to companies and services that are assisting their customers in achieving measurable sustainability goals.

The GPP was formed when all the key stakeholders in Ireland’s newspaper and magazine industry joined forces, for the first time ever, to agree a new set of environment standards designed to bring more co-operation and efficiency to the paper supply chain.

Thanks to the efforts of the GPP, Ireland’s rate of newsprint recycling has risen to 79% – among the best in the world – while the ‘wholecopy returns’ initiative with the significant assistance of wholesalers has helped to divert more than 65,000 tonnes of newsprint from landfill since its inception.

The final of the Green Awards 2011 takes place on April 14th in Dublin.

Ireland is well advanced in achieving most of the EU waste recovery and recycling targets, according to the Environmental Protection Agency’s National Waste Report 2009. However, the report urges continued efforts to divert biodegradable waste from landfill, improve the penetration of source separated waste collection services (3 bin), and prevent waste arisings from all sectors of society.

In 2009, municipal waste generation in Ireland fell by a further 8.4% following a 5% reduction the previous year. These changes are in line with reductions in GDP and personal consumption levels. The amount of biodegradable municipal waste landfilled fell by 11%, leaving Ireland within 143,000 tonnes of meeting its EU Landfill Directive diversion target for 2010. Household waste generation fell by 3% in spite of an increase in population; 70% of packaging waste was recovered and there was a decrease of 62% in construction and demolition waste.

Laura Burke, director of the EPA’s Office of Climate Change, Licensing and Resource Use.

“There has been a significant reduction in the amount of municipal waste generated in Ireland, from a peak of almost 3.4 million tonnes in 2007, to less than 3 million tonnes in 2009. The economic downturn is having a marked effect on waste generation, particularly in the commercial waste and construction and demolition waste streams. Ireland is also making good progress towards achieving its EU targets for packaging waste, waste electrical goods, the first objectives under the Landfill Directive and also objectives under the new Waste Framework Directive,” comments Laura Burke, director of the EPA’s Office of Climate Change, Licensing and Resource Use.

“While the reductions in waste generation and the improvements in recovery seen in 2009 are welcome, we must continue to focus on resource efficiency to ensure that when economic growth does return, it is not accompanied by a surge in waste generation,” she adds.

Significant progress has been made in managing municipal waste in Ireland and the report clearly shows that Ireland is expected to meet a key EU target for diverting biodegradable municipal waste from landfill in 2010. However, the targets for 2013 and 2016 will be more difficult to achieve. Urgent and sustained actions are required if Ireland is to meet these EU targets, including the further roll-out of source-segregated collections, recovery of organic waste and development of infrastructure for the pre-treatment of municipal waste prior to disposal.

The EPA has published guidance on municipal waste pre-treatment and has reviewed all the municipal waste landfill licences in Ireland to include appropriate pre-treatment licence conditions. This will greatly assist in Ireland’s compliance efforts with the Landfill Directive by restricting the amount of biodegradable municipal waste allowed to be landfilled.

However, further priority actions for biodegradable municipal waste management in Ireland are recommended in the report. They include the need to:

* Ensure there is adequate infrastructure to treat the very large quantities of organic (particularly food) waste that must be collected separately and diverted from landfill and also for the organic component of the mixed residual waste stream;

* Develop outlets for the products of such treatment;

* Update and clarify national waste policy;

* Promote food waste prevention through National Waste Prevention Programme initiatives;

* Put in place services for the separate collection of organic (particularly food) waste at households and commercial premises in all local authority functional areas;
Improve penetration of educational material to households on the use of the third (organics) bin and,

* Formulate and implement regulations/bye-laws that can be used to require the segregation and separate collection of food waste at household premises.

Laura Burke continues: “The new EU Waste Framework Directive, which came into effect in December 2010, will be a significant influence and driver of change in waste management practices and governance in Ireland and elsewhere over the coming decade. In line with EU objectives, the EPA’s National Waste Prevention Programme focuses on breaking the link between economic growth and waste. Through this programme the EPA is developing waste prevention and resource efficiency capacity in the areas of waste and water in particular. Such actions can assist everyone, in households and businesses alike, to improve resource efficiency and significantly cut costs.”