Recycling will rise

Recycling will rise

Claire Egan

MAYO COUNTY Council has one of the worst recycling rates in the country. However, the local authority expects recycling rates to rocket in 2007 due to the privatisation of the refuse collection service.
Mayo has a household recycling rate of only 6.7% according to the newly published Services Indicators in Local Authorities report 2006.
Carlow had the lowest recycling rate at 6.5% while Longford County Council was the ‘greenest’ county with 57.9% of household waste recycled. The national average recycling rate was 21.69%.
The council believe that recycling rates for 2007 will be significantly higher as private contractors are now responsible for refuse collection.
Speaking to The Mayo News, Mr John Condon, on behalf of Mayo County Council said that in light of the figures, the local authority made the correct decision when privatising the refuse service.
“These figures relate to 2006 only and the reason the figures were so low is because we simply were not sending any of the refuse to recycling but rather straight to landfill. To recycle required further investment and we were not in a position to do this. We only relinquished control over the refuse service on January 5 this year while other counties who have scored higher in this report, as regards household waste recycling, have privatised their refuse service for a longer period of time,” said Mr John Condon.
The report, compiled by the Local Government Management Services Board accounts for the annual performance of local authorities in a range of areas.
This year approximately 93.3% of waste went directly to landfill at the county’s two recycling sites at Derrinumera, Newport and Rathroeen, Ballina.
This year’s recycling statistics are in line with previous reports. Mayo County Council ranked poorly in the Service Indicators Report 2004 with a lowly 2.5% recycling rate, increasing marginally to 5.84% in 2005.
The council ceased refuse collection in January of this year amid protests by members of the public and political representatives, against the privatisation of the service.
Fine Gael Deputy Michael Ring hit out at the local authority, saying that they had failed in their public duty and that their poor showing in last week’s report was not surprising.
“Is this any wonder when the county council disposed of their refuse collection service leaving households to fend for themselves. The council have failed in their duty and found the handy way out by disposing of the refuse collection service,” commented Deputy Ring.
However, according to Mayo County Council the privatisation of the service will ensure an increase in recycling countywide.
“It was costing the council over €2 million a year to run the service and it was decided that the best option was to move to private contractors. While there was much protest against this it was the best decision.,” commented Mr Condon.
Despite the alarmingly low recycling rates in the county, Mayo exceeded the national average for ‘bring bank’ recycling facilities. Glass bring banks amounted to 90, exceeding the national average of 43 with a similar statistic repeated for can bring banks.
“There is no problem with civic amenity centres. We have two in the county, at Newport and Ballina while as well as that we have bring banks distributed countywide at a reasonable distance for most people to travel to. The public are moving towards recycling and it is our objective to ensure a high rate of recycling countywide,” said Mr Condon.

Household Recycling Rates

Bottom of the heap
Dublin City13.0%
Cavan12.5%
wicklow11.2%
Donegal11.0%
Mayo6.7%
Carlow6.5%

Our provincial neighbours
Galway City46.2%
Council
Galway County32.0%
Sligo28.9%
Roscommon21.3%
Leitrim17.2%