106. Deputy Matt Carthy asked the Minister for Climate, Energy and the Environment his proposals to increase the amount of polyethylene terephthalate, PET plastic recycled in Ireland. [30328/25]

Sentiment score: 0.18

The deposit return scheme is well known to people, sometimes for the hassle of it and sometimes for the economic benefit of it. A huge proportion of the plastic that is collected under the scheme is shipped as waste plastic out of Ireland even though there is at least one company in this State that could manage quite a large part of the process. Is the Minister of State making efforts to ensure a greater proportion of the plastic that is collected is recycled in Ireland?

Sentiment score: 0.37

It is regrettable that the figures the Minister of State gave a date from before the introduction of the deposit return scheme. The information I have is that by the end of this month, 17,000 tonnes of plastic will have been collected under the scheme but only 3,400 tonnes of that will have been brought to a factory in the State. I mentioned previously to the Tánaiste in the House that Shabra Plastics and Recycling, a company in my constituency, can do a large part of the work. The process involves the bottles being washed, flaked, pelleted and then returned as bottles. Shabra can do the first two parts, that is, washing and flaking. The immediate environmental benefit from this is that four lorry loads of plastic bottles become three lorry loads of flakes. Is Repak obliged to follow any environmental consideration in the operation of the scheme? It seems to me it is not.

Sentiment score: -0.01

I do not know how the Minister of State can say Ireland leads the way on plastics recycling when, in fact, we are leading the way in shipping those materials all over the world. We need to build capacity. As I mentioned, Shabra Plastics and Recycling can do a large part of the work and could do it all if it puts in a pellet production line. That would involve a huge investment, however, and the company would have to have enough plastic coming in do it. I hope the Minister of State accepts the real difficulty is that the plastic is achieving more money elsewhere. Repak is selling it to the highest bidder without any environmental consideration. That is a problem because it not the best option environmentally and it is preventing us from reaching what the Minister of State has stated is his objective, namely, to have more of the plastic recycled in Ireland. Will he engage with the domestic industry and with Repak to end this absolute scandal?

Sentiment score: -0.01

I reaffirm everything Deputy O'Rourke said. The statement read by the Minister could have been read by every single Minister for the environment since 2006 when this project was mooted. Since 2006, Minister after Minister has devolved this issue entirely to EirGrid and said it was an operational matter and since 2006, EirGrid has made a mess of this. The Minister said he will not apportion blame. I will apportion blame to the pigheadedness of EirGrid. It is a model exercise in how not to deliver public infrastructure projects because it has failed and refused to engage with communities and the facts as they are developing. I urge the Minister to check what he said in this Dáil about the reports that have been produced because the most substantive of them described undergrounding of the interconnector as a credible option, which is the opposite of what the Minister said here. I encourage the Minister to look at that and revert. The only question I would put to him is whether he will meet the campaigning groups on the ground to get a full sense of the challenges of presenting this project through overhead power lines because it is not going to happen on the current trajectory?

Sentiment score: -0.03

How many?

Sentiment score: 0.00