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.

The City Bin Co has been officially recognised for the third year in a row as one of Ireland’s leading businesses by retaining the prestigious Deloitte ‘Best Managed Companies’ award. The 2011 Deloitte ‘Best Managed’ designation is a symbol of corporate success, an award of excellence for companies that translate a core vision into a thriving venture.

The company, which originated in Galway in the late 1990s, has progressed from small beginnings, to its current operations in Galway, Dublin and several other counties. The company’s services to business involve waste collection from the customer’s site, and subsequent transportation to both licensed recycling facilities and licensed disposal facilities. In addition to the physical provision of the service The City Bin Co also provides an advisory service for customers wishing to reduce their costs through more efficient management of their waste generation.

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Pictured from left to right: Cathal Treacy, partner at Deloitte; Niamh Bray, operations manager of The City Bin Co; and James Kent, sales manager of The City Bin Co.

Mr Binman, the County Limerick-based family owned and run waste collection and recycling company, is taking its ‘green revolution’ into County Cork, by providing a new and environmentally friendly waste collection service to the householders.

Cork County Council recently sold its waste collection business following a Waste Management Review which highlighted decreasing customer members and a substantial budget shortfall.

Mr Binman, which was Repak Recycling Recovery Operator of the Year in 2009, is now expanding its services to more areas in County Cork to offer a cheap, hassle-free service for householders.

According to Joe Cleary, sales and marketing director of Mr Binman, the company is making it as easy as possible for former Cork County Council customers to move to the company’s new service. “Our ‘Make the Change’ campaign in Cork has been generating a huge amount of interest. We are switching people over to the new service in under 3 minutes – how could it be any simpler? Either over the phone or online at mrbinman.com, we can set up a new account immediately once we verify the household is on one of our ever expanding collection routes.”

Mr Binman offers a different type of service compared to the previous pay per weight in arrears arrangements put in place by the County Council.

He continure: “We are servicing the glass bottle banks all over County Cork for some time now and people should be familiar with our distinctive yellow and green trucks as a result of this. We have over 60,000 household customers across all areas of Munster including parts of Cork and there has been a tremendous uptake on our service in Cork so we hope that this continues.”

Since its establishment in 1994 Mr Binman has been continually expanding its routes into the wider Munster region.

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Mr Binman being presented with the Repak Recovery Operator of the Year 2009 award.

Mr Binman, the regional waste collection and recycling company, and Waterford radio station WLP fm have launched the Mr Binman/Deise AM Bag for Life campaign to reduce the use of plastic bags in the South East.

Mr Binman is the current Repak Recycling Contractor of the Year and is constantly striving to increase the amount of recycling. To mark winning the Repak award for the third time, Mr Binman has decided to spread the recycling message further by providing recycling collections free of charge in Waterford City, Waterford County and South Tipperary.

“The challenge for us all is to make small modifications in our day to day practises. Small but significant steps such as reducing, reusing and recycling our waste can make a big difference. We want to encourage everyone to Make the Change,” says Joe Cleary, sales and marketing director of Mr Binman.

A family run company, Mr Binman employs over 150 people in the South East region.

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Pictured at the launch of the Mr Binman/Deise AM Bag for Life initiative are: Gary O’Keeffe, commercial director of Mr Binman; Billy McCarthy, director of programmes, WLR fm; and Joe Cleary, sales and marketing director of Mr Binman.

Cork County Council has sold its waste collection business to Country Clean Recycling, following a competitive process involving a number of waste management companies operating in the private sector.

Falling customer numbers, coupled with rising costs associated with a new EU Landfill Directive on the pre-treatment of waste, and the introduction of a VAT charge of 13.5%, has resulted in Cork County Council being faced with an unsustainable financial position in relation to its waste collection business. In order to combat these challenges, a Waste Management review was undertaken in 2009 which highlighted a Eur1.6 million budget shortfall for 2010.

Following the review, Cork County Council decided to begin investigating all available options in relation to its waste collection business. This included carrying out market research with a view to selling the waste collection business.

The decision to sell its waste collection business will allow Cork County Council to deploy staff and resources in other key service areas throughout the county. As part of the agreement, the Council has secured a continuation of the waiver scheme for a further twelve months.

“Given the significant reduction in our customer base over the past number of years and rising costs associated with our waste collection business, we had no option but to undertake a root and branch review of this part of our operation. Unfortunately, the outcome of the review clearly pointed to an increasingly unsustainable financial situation in our waste collection business, particularly in light of a highly competitive private sector marketplace and additional costs in relation to the EU Directive on VAT and pre-treatment of waste,” explains Declan Daly, deputy county manager, Cork County Council.

Eur10 Million Deal

“This deal is worth up to Eur10 million for Cork County Council over the next 12 months when you factor in the projected losses the service would have incurred in the next fiscal year, losses which have been greatly added to by the introduction of VAT on refuse service since July 2010, says ” Jim Daly, mayor of County Cork.

Denis Murphy, financial controller of Country Clean Recycling, says: “Country Clean Recycling will extend the waiver scheme to twenty four months on the basis of customer loyalty. We will also be implementing an immediate reduction of 10% in waste charges to all non-waiver customers. Furthermore, we will be rolling out additional new services to Council customers.”

According to Cork County Council, the transfer of the business to Country Clean Recycling will not give rise to any disruption. The Council will write to all existing waste collection customers in the coming days to explain how the transfer process to Country Clean Recycling will take place.

Country Clean Recycling is owned by David and Mary O’Regan and has its headquarters at Mallow, County Cork and a branch network in Cork City, Midleton and Carrigaline. David O’Regan entered into the waste management industry in 1990 by setting up a waste collection service in his local area of Shanballymore. Country Clean Recycling has grown steadily, taking over nine other waste collection companies during the period 1991 to 2003. The most recent take-over, in June of 2003, brought the company into the waste skip market, acquiring Cork Mini Skips in Churchfield.

At this time the company developed a Material Recycling Facility (MRF) in Cork City for the recovery of recyclable materials, which are packaged, stored temporarily, and subsequently transported for recycling. Country Clean Recycling currently employs 90 staff over three company locations, and hosts a fleet of 30 waste collection vehicles for serving the Munster area.