Repak results highlight Ireland's recycling use

Annual Repak results released on Monday, May 22nd, show that Ireland is recycling over two-thirds of its used packaging after going beyond EU targets for 2005.

The results show big increases in the recycling of all packaging materials in both industry and domestic households.
Repak is a project set up under waste management rules to reuse packaging waste. Firms with a turnover of over E1 million and which produce more than 25 tonnes need to join Repak or any other scheme available or recover its own packaging tonnage.

According to Repak, one of the most significant growth areas was in kerbside dry recycling schemes. This was aided by the introduction of weight or volume charges in other bins and rose by 140%.
Repak supports around 820,000 households and 2,200 bring banks. Since 2000, around E93 million has been invested in recycling used packaging by industries which are Repak members.

Repak chief executive officer Andrew Hetherington said that continued growth might be harder to achieve. He asked for more action to be taken against companies which ignored waste-packaging regulations.
The results showed that Repak received its fee income of E20.6 million from 2,200 member companies. The company recruited and certified 273 new members in 2005.