COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

MEETING OF SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

Tuesday, February 11, 2020

MOTION NO. 13

MOTION: Councillor F. Timmons

That this Council, in an effort to reduce waste, bans one use plastics in a phased manner to use up what plastic is left and also looks at going Paperless for meetings and daily work where possible and send brochures etc by email where possible and encourages all Councillors only to print when absolutely essential and that this is brought to the Environment SPC for policy on same.  

REPORT:

Single Use Plastics:

Plastic water cups have been removed from the building and products such as plastic salad containers have been removed from the canteen. There has also been an elimination of single use coffee cups from the coffee dock following the introduction of the conscious cup campaign and the Cup2Go pilot which was run in conjunction with the Management of the Coffee Dock. As new contracts are signed or contracts come up for renewal, these initiatives will be included in the new contracts.

South Dublin County Council has issued over a 920 conscious cups over 3 campaigns. It is estimated that each conscious cup diverts 1,000 single use cups from landfill over a 3 year period. It is therefore estimated that the cups issued by SDCC will result in 920,000 less single use cups being sent to landfill.

SDCC is also currently introducing and promoting public water fountains to encourage the use of reusable bottles.

SDCC has also amended the application process for events taking place in SDCC Parks. All event organisers planning to hold an event in a public park must apply for approval prior to an event taking place.  A new condition in relation to prohibiting the use of single use plastics has been included under the terms and conditions attached to an application where approval is granted. Weekly events such as the Parkruns which currently take place in Corkagh Park, Tymon Park, Griffeen Valley Park and Waterstown Park do not provide any refreshments for participants. It is a bring your own policy, which generally consists of refillable bottles.

Council Business:

All business at all Council meetings is conducted online through the Council Meeting Administration System (CMAS) and all Councillors are issued with laptops to support paperless meetings. No hard copy documents or meeting papers have been used at Council meetings since the introduction of the paperless system in 2004.

Council communications are predominantly online, with a 'digital first' strategy in operation which includes extensive online and social media activity. The main exception to this are the Citizen Newsletters which are published twice-yearly and printed in hard copy for accessiblity purposes but these are accompanied by online versions that are widely promoted. Corporate publications such as the Annual Report are also printed in hard copy but again in small numbers as their promotion in digital versions is extensive.

If this motion is passed it will be added to the SPC work programme for 2020.