A review of 2017 published by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found, that among other observed improvements, the waste prevention and resource efficiency strategies made a significant progress during that year.
Laura Burke, Director General of the EPA said: "The EPA provides leadership by identifying new and innovative practices that contribute to waste prevention and resource efficiency. Many of these initiatives are promoted to homeowners, businesses and other sectors through the National Waste Prevention Programme. These include the EPA’s Stop Food Waste programme and the Food Waste Charter.
"The fifth annual series of Farm Hazardous Waste collections involved ten one-day nationwide events, held during October & November. In 2017, more than 2,400 farmers participated, bringing 177 tonnes of hazardous wastes and 86 tonnes of WEEE and waste batteries to the collections for safe disposal.
"The scheme won the Excellence Through Collaboration category in November at the annual Civil Service Excellence and Innovation awards. In addition, the Smart Farming initiative – a strategic partnership between EPA, [Irish Farmers' Assocoation] IFA and farmers - resulted in improved environmental protection practices on 1,000 farms by end 2017."
EPA also focuses on engaging the public in protecting and improving the environment. On that subject, Ms Burke spoke about providing information to enable people to keep up-to-date with trends and developments in environmental matters.
She added: "During 2017 we launched a mobile enabled bathing water website called Beaches.ie. And for a more specialist user of EPA data, we also developed a new National Waste Statistics web resource in 2017. The resource provides users with accessible content and easy to use interactive graphs and charts. We will regularly update the resource and provide the latest information, graphics and commentary on priority wastes, waste infrastructure and trends."
Are you wondering why we're discussing legislation in the Republic of Ireland? Watch this space...
