This article is from page 15 of the 2012-03-06 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 15 JPG
ALMOST half of all Clare homes have no recognised waste collector and no indication of how or where they dispose of their household waste. According to new figures released by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 47 per cent of Clare homes have no kerb-side waste collection service.
With fly-tipping and illegal dumping now reaching epidemic proportions in every part of the county, fears are growing that the costs associated with disposing of household waste properly are deterring many people from disposing of their waste properly.
This latest EPA figure does not mean that 47 per cent of Clare households are involved in illegal dumping. Anecdotal evidence would suggest that there has been a significant increase in the number of neighbours sharing a single collection service and people bringing rubbish directly to the Central Waste Management Facility at Ballyduff beg for disposal.
“The figures in the report means that 47 per cent of households in Clare did not avail of, or were not offered, a kerb-side collection service,” said Emily Williamson of the EPA.
“However, to qualify this, this does not mean that 47 per cent of households in Clare were illegally dispos- ing of their waste, as we are aware that there are households that bin-share, opt to bring their waste to civic amenity sites or landfills or who can bring their household waste to their workplace for collection.
“The percentage is based on the number of households that the waste collection operators said they collected from and the number of occupied houses in the county.”
It has also been mooted that Clare County Council could soon introduce new bye-laws which would put the onus on the home-owner to show how they are properly disposing of their waste.
Similar bye-laws have been introduced by a number of local authorities, including Limerick County Council, in recent months and they require households that do not have a recognised waste collection service to show some level of proof as to how they are disposing of their waste properly.
According to the EPA report, more than 13,000 tonnes of household waste were disposed of at the Central Waste Management Facility at Ballyduff beg in 2010. It is, however, unclear how much of the waste from from individual households and how much was from commercial operators. The Clare People contacted Clare County Council in relation to this story but no comment was forthcoming at the time of going to press.