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SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

MEETING OF SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

Monday, January 11, 2021

QUESTION NO.21

QUESTION: Councillor F. Timmons

To ask the Chief Executive to issue a report into recycling banks in the county and how he intends to increase these much needed facilities ?

REPLY:

The Council operates a network of bring bank sites around the County for use by the community for the collection and recycling of both glass bottles and textiles.  In a typical year the quantity of glass collected and recycled is in the region of 5,000 tonnes while the tonnage of textiles collected is in the region of 400 to 500 tonnes in a typical year.  During 2020 with pubs and restaurants closed for much of the year due to Covid 19 restrictions, the level of usage of the glass recycling facilities increased substantially with tonnages to the end of year expected to come close to 7,000 tonnes for the year.  In addition to the network of public bring banks it is also the case that textile recyclers have arrangements in place where they can place their containers on private sites, in return for a yearly fee, and this obviously provides additional capacity as well as a higher level of coverage in the provision of these facilities. 

This Council put in place a 5 year community recycling strategy in 2016 and this strategy document will be reviewed and replaced with a new 5 year strategy during the course of 2021.  The review and replacement of the strategy will form part of the work programme for the Environment, Public Realm and Climate Change SPC in the coming year.    The current strategy identified the need for an examination of deficits in the provision of the recycling service for glass and in particular the North Clondalkin area has been identified as an area where additional bring sites for glass are required.  Over the course of the past three years a total of eleven sites, some public and some private, have been identified as suitable for use as bring bank sites in the North Clondalkin area.  These sites were all examined further, some required permission from the private landowner to develop as bring sites and some required consultation with local residents where proposed sites were withing 50m of the nearest house.  To date it has not been possible to proceed with any of these proposed sites.  In those cases where permission was required from the private landowners it was not forthcoming.  Where public consultation was required as set down in the recycling strategy, the consultation established that local residents did not want these facilities to be provided close to their homes. 

It is intended that the issues as outlined above will be examined through the review of the community recycling strategy and in conjunction with the Council's Climate Change Action Plan, a different approach will be required if additional glass recycling sites are to be secured into the future.  Please note that the provision of community recycling facilites have been incorporated into the planning of both Airlie Park and Tandy's Lane Park in the Lucan area and these facilites are expected to be in place in 2022.