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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The Clare Byrne Show on Newstalk. With Aviva Insurance. Now it's time for this. Going Green. On the Clare Byrne Show.
With Repack. Repack members. Repackaging the future and valuing resources. Find out more on repack.ie.
So you arrive home in the evening and your bin has been collected. Do you ever give it a second thought? So let's ask the question, what happens to your rubbish once it leaves your house? Conor Walsh is here, Secretary of the Irish Waste Management Association. Conor, you're very welcome. Thank you for being here. So what will we start with?
Will we start with the recycling bin perhaps first and then we'll go to the rest of it? So what happens to that stuff?
Yeah, thanks, Clare. Thanks for having us on again. Look, I think it's only fair when we ask people to sort waste at home that we try and give them a little bit of feedback as to what happens to it, because it kind of helps people to understand why it's so important to sort waste at home. So just starting with the recycling bin, the dry recycling. So
In the old days, we would have had handpickers, you know, people on lines picking out various materials for recycling.
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Chapter 2: What happens to your rubbish after it leaves your house?
Nowadays, it's very automated, very high levels of technology being used. I mean, we still have the handpickers, but the handpickers are mostly just getting stuff ready for the machinery, you know, and picking out contaminants, stuff that just shouldn't be there at all. And there's plenty of that at times.
So, you know, we have things like magnets that will pull out the metals and then we have robots, would you believe? So it's not that common now, but it's becoming more common. So AI technology and robots. So the robot arms can tell what something is and they can really quickly go and suction cups on it. They can just pull things off. So robots are being used.
So they're taking things like soft plastic away from cardboard.
Yeah. I mean, an example, I suppose, at the moment in Dublin is Tetra Pak has been pulled out by robots. Milk cartons. Yeah, the milk Tetra Pak stuff. Yes, exactly. And juice and that. And that is sponsored by the company who put that stuff on the market. So that is good that they're taking it back.
You want it separate from the paper because it is recyclable, but there are layers in it and paper mills don't generally like it. So it goes to a special mill where they separate out the layers and they get the fibre, recycle the fibre from it. And the one that's very common now is optical separators.
So this is where a light, they shine a light on the material and depending on how it's reflected or refracted, there's a jet of air comes in. So the jet of air will blow it left, right, forward. It'll blow it in a different direction depending on material.
on the polymer of what it is you know whether it's a one type of plastic or another type of plastic or paper yeah oh yeah it's very very commonly used um you know we also have a separate things by size and shape and and that kind of thing as well so um we you know we end up with with uh with some really good materials coming out of it and i'd just like to give you a good example actually of of one material that's recycled here in ireland and that's
It's the HDP. So the milk, the plastic milk bottles that people will be familiar with. So there's a company in County Tyrone called Stratroy Dairies and they supply these bottles. They supply milk to a lot of the supermarkets all over the island of Ireland.
So those milk bottles then come back through these sorting plants and they can be sent back to that facility because they have a recycling plant right there. They have their own sorting plant there.
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Chapter 3: How is recycling processed in modern facilities?
And then, you know, so it's total circular economy there at one plant and it's in Ireland. So we're very proud of that.
Some of the stuff is going overseas, isn't it?
A lot will go abroad because, you know, we used to have a paper mill, for example, in Clonsky. It was 80,000 tonnes. It's very small. It closed 20, 30 years ago, Smurfett's. So we can't really have a paper mill here because you need about a half a million tonnes and we're a bit short of that. So paper does get exported to paper mills.
Some of the plastic is recycled here, but a lot of it does get exported.
OK, can we move on then to the waste bin? So the black sacks. Yeah, exactly.
So again, historically, it would have all gone to landfill. So if you go back 20 years ago, 2 million tonnes was going to landfill. Now it's about 300,000 tonnes. So it's come down an awful lot. When it went to landfill, we do extract gas out of it. It breaks down in landfill.
all the landfill sites and the historic landfill sites will extract that gas and they'll use that gas to generate electricity. So there is some energy recovery, but it's quite a low level of energy recovery compared to other options. And the other options are the waste to energy plants. So we have two in Ireland, one in Dublin at Poolbeg, one in Meath near Dulik.
And they they generate electricity out of the waste. But also district heating is coming to Dublin. So they've had plans in Dublin for district heating from the waste to energy plant for, you know, 15 years or so. But it's starting to happen now. They've they've enabled it and now they're starting to use it.
So there's planning put in place and there's a new big new development of the Irish glass bottle system. factory site in Ringsend and that is ready for district heating coming from the plant. They also have pipework going up and down the Quays and crossing the Liffey. So, you know, it's part of a Dublin City Council plan.
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Chapter 4: What technologies are used in recycling plants?
Well, look, fertilisers from the Straits of Hormuz have been blocked and we can make compost here from that material. And we can also use it in anaerobic digestion for biogas production. And biogas is brilliant because it can be converted to biomethane and biomethane is a transport fuel.
So, you know, we have situations where we have trucks delivering food waste to an anaerobic digestion plant and driving away with the gas that's been produced at that plant, fueling their vehicle. And that's, again, a brilliant example of the circular economy.
Is all of the food waste being used for that?
No, I'd say the commercial food waste, apartments, you know, places where we have caddies. So when people have smaller collections, it's all food waste and the food waste goes for that end use. Where it's mixed with garden waste, it tends to go for compost.
Now, there is a new plant being built in Cork, as we speak, in Little Island, and that can take food and garden waste mixed to make this biogas, this biomethane. The biomethane can also go into the gas grid and it replaces fossil gas. So that's another really good use.
So that's a really efficient use of food waste rather than, you know, when it's in the general waste bin, the efficiency goes way down. We get energy back, but nowhere near as much, nowhere near as useful as if we get it separated.
OK, this is a listener question, and I think you've answered this in part, but I want to put it to you anyway. What percentage of material is recycled and what percentage goes to landfill?
Well, landfill is down to about 13% right now. Recycled, it's 42% officially. We think it's closer to 50% because the statistics are two years behind.
Is that a percentage of all waste?
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