COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

South Dublin County Council Crest

MEETING OF SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

Monday, September 13, 2021

QUESTION NO 10.

QUESTION: Councillor C. King

"To ask the Manager to provide a costing for an annual Junk Collection in one electoral area per year in an effort to reduce the significant tonnage of dumped materials in our Estates, Parks and Mountainous areas. The areas collected from would be done on a cyclical basis with a number of years between collections in any particular electoral area thus reducing costs on previous proposals for an annual County wide Collection as previously took place at significant cost to the Council and therefore the taxpayer. Can the Manager make a statement on the matter"

REPLY:

The Council's Environment Dept previously provided a mobile collection service for both bulky waste and large white goods, this service was terminated in 2008 due to the economic downturn.  The service was provided to households in RAPID areas once in every 3 years and to all other households once in 5 years, it was not provided to households on an annual basis. 

The cost to provide the service was in the region of €500,000 to €600,000 per annum to service a total of 20,000 households, giving a cost per household of €25 to €30.  The total quantity of waste materials collected was on average 1,500 tonnes per year giving an average per household of 75kg per household.  The costs associated with the various elements of such a service (labour costs, provision of collection equipment, fuel, materials and waste recycling/disposal costs for example) have increased in recent years, the overall costs given above would be expected to have increased by 20% or more over the 13 years since the last collection. 

The provision of a service on a pilot basis to approximately 5,000 households was examined, costed and reported on to the Council in recent years.  That report estimated the cost of such a pilot in one year to be in the region of €150,000 based on costs from the collections provided pre 2008, and this would exceed the cost of the Council's response to Halloween in recent years.  The proposal made now to provide a service to one electoral area per year on a cyclical basis would involve servicing approximately 15,000 households per year, once in every 6 years.  Using the costings available from before and applying a 20% increase to them, it is estimated that the yearly cost of such a service would be expected to be in the region of €500,000 and would therefore cost approximatley €3m to complete the County wide cycle over a 6 year period. 

It should be noted that the provision of a collection service for household bulky waste would have no impact on the illegal dumping of 'black bags' and burning of household black bag waste which forms the largest part of the illegal dumping problem in the County. 

Another point to bear in mind in this regard is that the new waste management plan for a circular economy represents a very clear shift towards the need to re-use household items or to prepare them for re-use, rather than dispose or recycle them.  If this is to be achieved then it will involve the development of schemes and facilities where the preparation of items for re-use can happen, goods such as household furniture for example.  It will no longer be seen as acceptable that such items are either disposed of or recycled, as Ireland transitions towards a Circular Economy.

The Council's recycling centre at Ballymount Avenue continues to accept bulky household waste items, in 2020 a total of 6,879 tonnes of this waste type was accepted at the Ballymount CA facility, .  A mattress 'amnesty' was held again in 2020 and a total of 572 tonnes of mattresses was collected.  Recycle IT provide a WEEE collection and acceptance service on behalf of the Council, this can be arranged to take place as a community service for which no fee is charged, or alternatively a collection can be arranged for an individual household for which a fee is payable.  Household WEEE is also accepted at the Ballymount CA facility and these items are accepted free of charge there.