BBC News | NORTHERN IRELAND | NI's recycling effort 'is rubbish'

by BBC Northern Ireland environment correspondent Mike McKimm

Northern Ireland is almost at the bottom of the European recycling league according to a waste management report.

The European average for recycled rubbish is about 30% of the total waste output - in Northern Ireland it is just 5%.

Lax legislation and a "throw away" culture means that almost all its waste is sent to landfill tips.

With the exception of a system dedicated to burning dried sewage sludge, this part of the UK has no incineration facilities.

However, impending EU legislation and the added threat of substantial fines, is starting to focus the mind of local government, encouraged by environmental bodies.

Waste collection does not always mean recycling
The report that revealed Northern Ireland's low standing calls for a development in recycling-friendly industries.

It wants to see the assembly give priority to recycling - related legislation to help meet stringent waste targets set for 2005.

This target for 2000 was recycling 25% of all waste - Northern Ireland missed by a massive 20%.

Much of the paper and glass stream is either lost to recycling through a casual attitude by the public or, in the case of paper, is sometimes dumped after collection, because of a collapse in the waste paper market.

Problems of scale

Included in the report's recommendations are:

statutory recycling targets for local councils;

priority for waste legislation in the assembly to encourage recycling;

a North-South waste strategy to take advantage of scale;

and the development of local recycling industries.

The big problem facing the whole island of Ireland is one of scale.

Unless a considerable waste reduction strategy, including recycling, is pulled together, the small scale of it all will mean that much of the waste industry would still work "hand-to-mouth", with little prospect of development.

For example, Northern Ireland cannot generate enough aluminium cans to sustain a smelter or a processing plant.

Likewise, it could not generate enough specialist waste paper to keep large scale plants in operation.

Throw away culture blamed for poor recycling record
But a series of cross-border arrangements could work.

The snag with this arrangement is not environmental - it's dealing with the political fallout when word gets about that "rubbish" from one side of the border is being dumped on the other.

Recycling and waste management is still not to the fore in the political vocabulary of many politicians, north and south.

In many ways, getting rid of the waste is the least of the problems facing environmentalists on the island.


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