Requirements of the Household Food Waste and Bio-Waste Regulations
The Household Food Waste and Bio-Waste Regulations were introduced on 01st July 2013, and are subject to amendment from time to time. The European Union (Household Food Waste and Bio-Waste) Regulations, 2015, (S.I. No. 430 of 2015) came into effect on 14th October 2015.
These regulations may be subject to amendment from time to time.
These regulations impose obligations on Householders living in specified areas to:
- segregate household food waste and keep it separate from other non-biodegradable waste, and have it separately collected by an authorised waste collector, and
- prohibit the disposal of food waste in the residual waste collection (the black bin).
Householders may alternatively:
- Compost the food waste at home, or
- Bring the food waste to authorised treatment centres, for recovery in an environmentally acceptable way, such as civic amenity sites, anaerobic digestion sites or for incineration.
These regulations impose obligations on Waste Collectors to:
- provide a separate collection service for food waste from households for population agglomerations in accordance with the specified time schedule (see below),
- include in its separate food waste collection service the direct provision of an approved reusable waste receptacle to the address of each household customer,
- collect at least once a fortnight, or more frequently where necessary, and
- transfer the food waste collected to an authorised facility for the purposes of an authorised treatment process.
Time Schedule for population agglomerations (areas) subject to these Regulations
If you live in Clonmel town and Environs, from the 01st July 2014, you must segregate your food waste and keep it separate from other waste streams.
If you live in Ballina, Cahir, Carrick-On-Suir, Cashel, Fethard, Nenagh, Newport, Roscrea, Templemore, Thurles, Tipperary Town, and their Environs, and, the Environs of Birr in Co. Tipperary from the 01st July 2015, you must segregate your food waste and keep it separate from other waste streams.
If you live in Ardfinnan, Ballyclerahan, Borrisokane, Borrisoleigh, Cloughjordan, Holycross, Killenaule, Kilsheelan, Two-Mile-Borris, and their Environs, from the 01st July 2016, you must segregate your food waste and keep it separate from other waste streams.
Purpose of the Household Food Waste and Bio-Waste Regulations
The purpose of these regulations is to promote the segregation and recovery of household food waste and in doing so meet Irelands EU Landfill Directive and EU Waste Directive obligations on the protection of the environment, waste hierarchy, etc., and, National Policy.
Ireland has objectives under the Landfill Directive 99/31/EC to divert biodegradable waste away from landfills; by 2016 we must have reduced our biodegradable waste to landfill to 35% of the biodegradable municipal waste produced in 1995. Failure to meet our targets will result in stiff penalties from the European Union.
The introduction of the Household Food Waste and Bio-Waste regulations as well as the (Commercial) Food Waste Regulations 2009 (S.I. No. 508 of 2009) will enable us to meet these targets.
Brown Bin Education Programme for Ireland
The Department of Environment, Community and Local Government and Cré have co funded the development of a national household brown bin education programme.
The national education programme consists of:
- a website (www.brownbin.ie);
- cartoon how to use the brown bin;
- a set of frequently asked questions (FAQs);
- electronic standardised instruction leaflets on using the brown bin;
- electronic designed pop up banner; and
- electronic contamination tags.
In general, there are 3 types of food waste thrown out:
• 60% is avoidable food waste,
• 20% is potentially avoidable food waste, and
• 20% is unavoidable food waste.
This means there is potential for you to reduce your food waste by up to 80%. For more information on food waste prevention please visit the web site www.stopfoodwaste.ie
The instruction leaflets and contamination tags are available electronically to enable waste collectors and local authorities add their own branding and print them.
See http://www.cre.ie/web/brown-bin-leaflets/
Instruction Leaflets - are provided to householders when they get with the brown bin and explains on how to use the brown bin.
Teasers Leaflets – which is typically sent to householders a few weeks before they get their brown bin from their collector
