The Clare Champion Clare news, sport, entertainment and local notes
The public are being invited to have their say on the preparation of a new regional plan that will set out a framework for waste management in 10 countries 0ver the next six years.
The Southern Region Waste Management Plan, which encompasses Carlow, Clare, Cork City, Cork County, Kerry, Kilkenny, Limerick City and County, Tipperary, Waterford City and County and Wexford, is one of three being developed in Ireland. It sets out a range of policies and actions in order to meet the specified mandatory and performance targets.
The launch in Galway this week coincided with the commencement of a period of public consultation which will continue until January 30, while the regional waste management plans are expected to be finalised by the end of March 2015.
“Most importantly the plan seeks to assist and support the community and local business to develop resource efficiency and waste prevention initiatives,” explained Philippa King, regional waste co-ordinator, Southern Waste Region.
“A key plan target is to achieve a 1% reduction per annum in the quantity of household waste generated per capita over the period of the plan,” she added.
The preparation of new regional waste management plans for the regions has been underway since late 2013 following an evaluation of the previous plans which covered ten regions nationally.
Since the last plans were published between 2004 and 2006, a southern region network of 770 bottle bank sites and 50 civic amenity sites accepting more than 25 categories of waste have been maintained, while a household recovery/recycling rate of 63% and a commercial recovery / recycling rate of 61% have been achieved. Nationally, a packaging recovery rate of 87% was achieved while an average of 7.3 kg of WEEE was collected per person from private households.
