THE deposit refund programme for beverage cans has been so successful that Cork County Council is considering removing it as a recycling option at the local authority’s bring sites.
At a recent meeting of the western committee, Louis Duffy, the director of environment, told the members that bring sites took in 10 tonnes of cans in January 2024, but the figure dropped to just two tonnes last September.
‘There is very little coming in,’ said Mr Duffy, who surmised that the service could continue for another couple of months before the Council decides to use the space for other, more in-demand recyclables.
In the first months of 2024, he said there was an actual increase in the use of beverage recycling facilities because anything that was not refundable under the new ‘Return’ scheme was brought to the sites.
In response to a question by Cllr Isobel Towse (SD), Mr Duffy ruled out the possibility of putting one of the new ‘Return’ machines at each of the Council’s civic amenity sites.
He said the ‘Return’ scheme is designed to fund itself.
He said the Council did think about adding the machines to the site but the cost of it, and how the funds would be recouped, would be a challenge.
‘We would need power and contracts in place and bins to accept anything that can’t be read by the machine,’ he said.
‘We would end up having to have a further bin on site and that could be abused. The system also needs a lot of maintenance,’ said Mr Duffy, who suggested that the compacted items could fill a bin three or four times a day and then have to be brought to a central bin.
Meanwhile, Cllr Finbarr Harrington (Ind) urged the Council’s environment department to keep the opening hours of all of West Cork’s civic amenity sites under review. ‘We need to keep them open longer rather than reducing hours,’ he said.
Mr Duffy also reported on the success of the ‘Re-love Paint’ initiative, which resulted in 30 tonnes of paint being recycled instead of going for incineration. And he reminded members of the public that leftover water-based paints can now be brought to the civic amenity sites.
He also asked people to check out the council’s ‘greening festivals’ initiative, which urges and assists organisers with a ‘tool kit’ for waste separation, single use cups, and the use of materials that have multiple uses.
In relation to climate action, the environment director said the increased storms and weather events right across the country is presenting local authorities with a challenge.
‘We are rising to that challenge,’ said Mr Duffy, who outlined how Cork County Council’s entire management team gathered at County Hall from midnight until 5am, when the county was most under threat, to ensure the correct deployment of resources.
He said climate change means that storms and weather events will increase as time goes on, but the Council was adapting to meet these challenges.
