| Repak collects €23.7 million from Irish companies |
Posted: August 15 2007
Over €23.7 million was collected by Repak from Irish companies in 2006 as part of their producer responsibility, up 13 per cent on 2005’s figure of €21.8 million.
However €45 million - nearly twice the present total - will be needed by 2011 to fund packaging recycling, states Repak in its Annual Results, published recently.
Overall, Repak is funding the recovery/recycling of around 64 per cent of all used packaging. Since 1997 it has diverted nearly three million tonnes of used packaging from landfill.
As the collection infrastructure continues to grow, €22.6 million was invested in packaging recycling as part of producer responsibility.
In total over 603,000 tonnes (up seven per cent from 2005) of glass, cardboard, plastic, paper and wood packaging was recycled during the year with 431,000 tonnes (or about 72 per cent) coming from the commercial sector and 173,000 tonnes (or around 29 per cent) from the domestic sector.
While the overall total tonnage recycled is up by seven per cent, the commercially collected tonnage increased by just one per cent while domestic-sourced tonnage increased by over 24 per cent.
Repak’s total membership of the producer responsibility scheme now accounts for 2,165 companies.
Commenting on increasing operating costs and the future of packaging recycling, Repak’s Chairman Andrew Hetherington said, “In order to meet future national recycling targets, more will need to be recycled from the domestic bin which will see costs rise significantly.
“This means industry will need to pay more but we believe the proposed reduction in the De Minmis threshold in the Waste Management (Packaging) Regulations (threshold for obligation) from 25 tonnes to 10 tonnes will play an important role in increasing compliance with the Regulations and spreading the burden of future cost increases across more businesses than Repak’s current 2,200 members.”
By material type, the amount recycled last year can be broken down into:
* Glass:111,283 tonnes, up a significant 12 per cent on the
previous year which represents approximately 76 per cent of
all glass placed on the Irish market. This reflects 19 per
cent of the total weight of material recycled for Repak in
2006.
* Cardboard and paper: 276,507 tonnes which is also up
12 per cent over 2005, reflecting 83 per cent of all paper
and board packaging forecast to be on the market and
accounting for 46 per cent of the total weight of materials
funded by the Repak Payment Scheme for Recycling.
* Wood: 111,047 tonnes of wood waste packaging were
recovered and recycled, representing 86 per cent of all
wood packaging calculated to be on the RoI market.
* Metals (Steel and Aluminium): 51,547 tonnes representing
68 per cent of packaging metals accounting for
approximately 8.5 per cent of total weight of waste
packaging material.
83 per cent of the waste packaging materials recovered and recycled were from glass, cardboard/paper and wood. This is in line with Repak’s strategy of targeting heavier weight and more cost-effective material types. 17 per cent of the material was from plastic and metals.
|
|
Print this page
Tell a friend
