Ireland’s progress towards the circular economy is stalling, says David Flynn, director of the office of environmental sustainability at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
His comments follow the release of the most recent waste statistics which found Ireland generated 15.7 million tonnes of waste in a year – equivalent to 8kg per person every day.
“Current measures to prevent waste, to promote reuse and encourage recycling are not enough to meet mandatory municipal waste and plastic packaging targets,” says Flynn.
“Strong implementation of existing policies and the introduction of new measures that support investment in new circular economy infrastructure will help move us away from a wasteful linear economy.”
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The European Union’s circular economy action plan aims to reduce pressure on natural resources and double its so-called circular material use rate (CMUR) by 2030. In 2023, recycled materials accounted for 11.8 per cent of material used in the EU as a whole; in Ireland, the figure was 2.7 per cent.
Increasing the amount of so-called secondary materials would not only reduce the amount of primary materials extracted for production, but also reduce the EU’s dependence on imported primary materials.
So, what exactly needs to happen next to move Ireland away from this wasteful linear economy to a circular economy in which waste is minimised throughout the production cycle and finite natural resources and materials are reused at their highest value?
At the recent 20-year celebration of the work of the Rediscovery Centre in Ballymun – aka the National Centre for the Circular Economy, we spoke to key individuals about what needs to happen next for the circular economy to grow in Ireland.
Shane Colgan is an expert in circular economy with the EPA and the lead author of Accelerating the Circular Economy in Europe (2024). He recently returned to Ireland after three years working with the European Environment Agency in Copenhagen.
“We had three key conclusions in the Accelerating the Circular Economy in Europe report,” says Colgan. “The first is that we need to moderate our consumption. Making this shift away from buying too much stuff is the hardest thing to do but taxation measures could help. Secondly we need to extend the lifetime of the stuff we have – to slow down the replacement of things and make it cool to have old stuff.
[ Ireland ‘overly reliant’ on exporting waste for recycling - EPAOpens in new window ]
“Repairing things also has to be less expensive – perhaps with the introduction of zero vat on repair services. In Copenhagen, there are lots of second hand shops where you can rent space to sell on your things and people regularly leave and take things from local recycling centres. Thirdly, we need to find ways to return substantial amounts of materials – glass, paper, metal – back into use. And we need reliable supply chains for these secondary materials.”
Enda O’Dowd, course coordinator of Medical Device Design at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin, highlights the critical issue of design: “Design is 80 per cent of the problem. Businesses need to change their business model from products to services so that designers design products that can be disassembled for reuse and repair. The polluter pays principle isn’t enough because businesses will just pay industry bodies to collect waste to get around their regulatory responsibilities for materials at their end of use.”
Geraldine Brennan, circular economy lead at Irish Manufacturing Research, says there has already been a big push towards building a regulatory framework to enable circularity.
“Ireland has a circular economy act, a circular economy action plan, a climate act and a climate action plan. Now we need to get these action plans implemented to deliver on the circular economy promise,” she says.
The director for circular economy in the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Environment has recognised that the regulatory demand for circular products has to be met with financial supports and incentives to support companies innovating in this space, Brennan notes.
“We believe there will be an opportunity for Ireland to drive more circular entrepreneurship when Ireland holds the EU presidency in 2026, which will coincide with the introduction of the European Circular Economy Act,” she says.
One of the biggest challenges is ensuring that the linear industrial system is optimised. Investment will be required to redesign for circular economy reverse logistics (ie when products are returned for disassembly) and new processes.
Brennan adds: “Through green public procurement, the public sector has the opportunity to drive change and make it safe for the private sector to follow. For example, the €30 million framework contract from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and the Department of the Environment for remanufactured computers from Green IT is a good example of leadership.”
Colum Gibson, manager of the Clean Technology Centre, Cork, is conscious of the need to overcome obvious obstacles: “We’ve got to start with green shoots to grow this area and invest in entrepreneurships. Grants applications from local authorities, Government departments and the European Commission need to be less bureaucratic so that risk takers will apply. Some things won’t work and others will.”
It’s very hard to fight the virgin textile industry but there are social enterprises such as the Roscommon Women’s Network CycleUp Textile Project which is making useful items from unwanted textiles, he says. In Co Clare, IFF Plastics collects and processes farm plastics from silage wraps into new long-lasting plastic fence posts which are returnable at the end of their life to be processed again, while Wastelands Salvages, also in Co Clare, salvages discarded items from skips for resale.
“It’s examples like these that we need to see more of and we also need to support businesses rather than rely on volunteer-led charity sector to manage waste, textile waste in particular.”
Claire Downey, newly appointed chief of the Rediscovery Centre, welcomes policy improvements.
“There has been a sea change in policy over the last few years and now we must move toward implementation. We need to create the right environment for circular businesses to work. Buying things in the circular economy needs to be more accessible, attractive and affordable for people. It’s easy to donate things [to charity shops] but we need more demand for reused items,” she says.
Downey highlights the 55 per cent of people now recognising the term circular economy and see its connection with prevention of waste, reuse and repair.
“There is also more awareness about the connection between the circular economy and climate change and the biodiversity crisis,” she says, something that must be backed by the provisions of supports and small grants to communities across Ireland to go circular.
“We also need to build a database to map repair centres throughout Ireland. Our focus is on citizens and communities to ensure that Ireland is engaged, informed and enabled to transition to the circular economy,” says Downey.
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