Meath County Council Ordinary Meeting
5th November 2018, Council Chamber

9 Notice of Motion
9.1 Submitted by Councillor Trevor Golden

To help promote recycling at our recycling centres and reduce illegal dumping, we ask Meath County Council to consider introducing measures such as loyalty programmes, household credits or regular free recycling days for households in Meath.

Supporting Information subject to the motion being proposed, seconded and considered.The operation of the Council’s three Civic Amenity Sites at Navan, Kells and Trim is the subject of a three year contract with Oxigen, which expires at the end of 2018. The contract provides various incentives that promote greater usage of the three sites, andalso requires the operators to engage in extensive education and awareness initiatives to promote recycling and other sound environmental practices.In order to facilitate the public to the greatest extent possible, a number of trials have been conducted in relation to the opening hours at the centres. However, the current opening hours of 8.30am to 4.45pm Monday – Saturday have been found to meet the needs of the majority of visitors to the site. In recent years, the Environment Department, in collaboration with the operators, hasheld a number of successful events in the three sites, which found great favour with the public, including a free mattress ‘drop off day’ in July of this year, resulting in approximately 500 mattresses being brought to the Kells Recycling centre. This initiative was funded under the Anti Dumping Initiative and it is believed that some of these would otherwise have been dumped. A trial food waste project was held over a number of months in Navan where participants gained free access to the site. It is pointed out that persons wishing to drop off waste electrical, electronic equipment (WEEE) are exempt from the €3 entry fee. A free toy drop off was held in 2017 in the three sites where large volumes of recyclable materials were delivered to the sites. A farm hazardous waste collection day was held in Kells recycling centre last year. A number of new initiatives are now being considered, some of which will tie in with the award of a new contract for the operation of the sites for the next four years – these include:

• The introduction of a compulsory loyalty scheme which will reward regular users of the sites and encourage additional users.
• Subject to approval as part of the estimates process, a possible review of the entry fee to the three sites.
• A free couch recycling day at Kells Recycling Centre on Saturday 17th November with further household bulky waste events to follow in 2019, as part of the Anti Dumping Campaign – (such events to be strongly advertised and promoted and aimed to dissuade the public from giving such goods to Man in the Van Type Operators.)
• A further ‘toy drop off’ day to be held in each of the three sites in December.
• Farm tyre waste collection day similar to a very successful event held recently in Cootehill, Co Cavan.
• New signage at each site highlighting what is included in your gate fee, and which waste streams involve extra costs, with up to date leaflets and leaflet holder attached to signs.

Link to Minutes on Meath County Council