TD Slams head of Price Monitoring Groups regarding waste recycling

“China is  not the problem, unsustainable production of plastics and other waste is says Brid Smith TD.

Deputy Brid Smith of People before Profit has slammed comments from Mr  Frank Conway of the Governments Price Monitoring Group. Mr Conway  described the charging for green bins announced by Panda as “inevitable” because of the Chinese ban on imports of plastic waste.

Deputy Smith said the only thing inevitable about the proposed charging was that private waste company’s will always seek to hike charges and increase their profits.

She said “The actual issue here is not the decision by China, it is that our society is producing vast amounts of sustainable and untreated waste. Single use plastics and an array of unnecessary packaging. That is not the choice of households or consumers, it is the choice of manufacturers and companies” .

“The real scandal is that we were shipping such waste to other countries and no real recycling was taking place,. This means that China and other nations were suffering the environmental effects of our waste; this is sustainable and unjust” she added.

Deputy Smith said the Chinese decision was a convenient cover for private waste companies to introduce charges  “Mr Conway and Minister Naughton seem to have forgotten the entire rationale for introducing black bin charges was to encourage people to recycle. Now we will charge people who do recycle.

She called on the Government to stop the proposed increases  “This is a farce, we need to bring waste management back into public ownership and invest in real recycling facilities here in Ireland. But we also need to reduce the waste we produce , the source of which is not individual households but business, a ban on single use plastics and getting retail chains and food producers to stop using plastic wrapping and excessive packaging  is urgently needed”

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Contact Brid Smith 0879090166

Nick Lee                    0876156473