Jason flies the flag at European Green Week

Learning from past successes and failures to ensure that current and future environmental challenges are addressed effectively was the goal of this year's Green Week, which ran in Brussels in June. Run by the European Commission, the annual conference and exhibition event is totally dedicated to the environment and welcomed a range of speakers from politics, science and business.

As part of the week a small delegation of Youth Eco-Parliament (YEP) participated in the environmental policy discussions and presented their ideas and recommendations for stopping the planet's environmental deterioration. Representing 3600 young people from 14 countries YEP's proposals for action were outlined in their ‘7 Open Letters’ which were distributed to the 4000 environmental opinion leaders and decision-makers participating in the Green Week.

Ireland was chosen as one of the delegations to take part and Repak chose Jason O’Connor who had previously represented Ireland at the Pro Europe Conference in Paris last October where YEP initially distributed their Open Letters to a public forum.

Jason was also chosen to front the YEP delegation in Brussels and to make a speech at the event’s closing ceremony. As part of his speech Jason highlighted that where they may not know everything about the environment today’s youth sector had the educational opportunities not open to many and therefore feel sufficiently qualified to form an opinion. Their opinion was that there was too much talk and not enough action with regards to environmental concerns. They therefore recommended that more co-operation and communication is needed and that young people can also play a proactive and vital role in ensuring the sustainability of the environment, not just for their generation but for those generations to come.

On his return, Jason called in to the Repak offices for a special presentation by Repak CEO Dr. Andrew Hetherington and Chairman, Mr. Adrian Goodrich. They presented Jason with the eco friendly Imax self sufficient radio which can run off solar and wind up energy.

Speaking of his time in Brussels, Jason thanked Repak for affording him the opportunity to attend and that he was now looking forward to pursuing a career in science after his leaving cert next year.

Repak EPA Prevention Programme Update

As part of its Packaging Prevention Programme, Repak has appointed consultants to examine the dyanamics behind product packaging decisions in terms of Who and Why?
The project which will identify and study a number of product supply chains with a view to identifying and understanding the packaging, and packaging design, decision-making process. The project will be carried out by Perchards, a consultancy firm with broad experience in packaging legislation.

The consultants will choose a number of common products, and work back through the supply chain and study the factors and dynamics of packaging decisions, including who makes decisions, for what reasons and in accordance with what requirements. It will further enquire if these decisions and design decisions could be changed and if there are barriers to such changes.
It is intended that the project will develop criteria for identifying suitable products for study based on criteria such as: amount of product sold, volume of packaging materials used in bringing product to point of sale, consumer perceptions of “over-packaging”, range of packaging options and choices, likely availability of good case study information, essential requirements, and best in class criteria.

It is anticipated that the project will be completed towards end 2007.

The full results of the study will be available from Repak.

Repak Service Providers Conference 2007

-Additional Funding Needed to Meet Future EU Packaging recycling Targets
-Investment in packaging recycling to rise to €45 million per year by 2011
-€117 million invested in packaging recycling by Repak since 1997
-Repak has funded the recycling of nearly 3 million tonnes of used packaging since 1997
-Repak agree 5 year Strategic Partnership with Government and stakeholders
-Changes to the packaging regulations to obligate more companies

The 2007 RPS Service Providers Conference was held in the Mullingar Park Hotel on the 25th April.
There are currently 153 Service Providers (Local Authorities and Commercial Waste Recycling Company’s) nationwide that are contracted by Repak for the recovery and recycling of packaging waste.
The general theme of the conference was “Sustainable Recycling”. Representatives from both Local Authority and Commercial Recovery Operators were in attendance.
Speakers on the day were Fred McDarby, Enterprise Ireland, Louis Duffy, Environment Dept, Cork County Council and Kathleen O’Donohue-Ryan, Best Practice Manager, Repak. The key note address was given by Minister of State for the Environment, Mr. Batt O’Keefe.
Attendees to the conference were informed that €180 million needs to be invested by Irish industry in packaging recycling over the next 5 years in order for Ireland to meet its next EU packaging recovery targets. By 2011 the annual funding of packaging recycling by Repak is forecast to rise to €45 million.
The new figures reflect a 50% increase in the funding for the next 5 years versus the amount invested over the last 10 years, as more recycled packaging is sourced from household bins throughout the country.
The figures were revealed against the backdrop of €117 million that Repak has invested in funding packaging recycling in Ireland to date, in meeting its member’s producer responsibility obligations to fund the recycling of their used packaging. Through this investment, packaging recycling has grown from under 15% in 1998 to over 60% in 2006. In total Repak has recorded the funding of nearly 3 million tonnes of used packaging since its establishment in 1997, which would otherwise have gone to landfill.

Fred McDarby presented on the plans for the €13 million government funded Market Development Programme. The delegates also heard details of the joint Repak/EPA Packaging Prevention programme that aims to reduce the volume of packaging being generated in the first place.

Future changes to the packaging regulations will see thousands of extra companies becoming obligated under the Waste Management Regulations (Packaging) was outlined by the minister for State Batt O’Keefe. Enforcement of this legislation is seen as key to ensuring that Ireland can continue to meet the steep costs of future packaging recycling targets.

As Repak celebrates its 10 year anniversary it outlined that central to ensuring that future funds were available to meet growing recycling targets meant not only large increases to existing members but more importantly bringing more companies into the producer responsibility net. Large companies who were currently ignoring the legislative obligation under producer responsibility also need to be identified and forced to comply.

Tidy Towns 2007 Launched

The Tidy Towns competition is a well known and well loved national competition organised by the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government. The competition involves participating towns being rated on all aspects of their local environment including litter control.

As the national Tidy Towns competition moves towards it’s 50th anniversary in 2008, Repak is delighted to continue its positive sponsorship arrangement with the DoEHLG and Ireland’s premier local community initiative, dedicated to ‘caring for the environment’.

In addition to the sponsorship of the 7 Regional Awards, Repak has again committed to the sponsorship of the new award for the ‘best presented and maintained bring bank site in each region’. This attracts a prize of €1,000 for the winner in each region and takes account both of presentation and utilisation by the local community in its evaluation. Certainly this award has complimented the existing Repak grant scheme which offers assistance to any local authority which is anxious to establish new bring bank sites in its area.

Speaking at the official launch on April 24th, Minister of State, Mr. Batt O'Keeffe TD, said "Last year a number of changes were introduced to strengthen Tidy Towns as it heads towards its fiftieth anniversary in 2008. This led to an unprecedented level of interest from communities all around Ireland and we hope that many of those who contacted the Department for information will go on to develop their ideas, form committees and take part this year”.

“2007 sees this programme of change continuing, with a particular emphasis on how to involve more communities and how to provide greater supports to existing participants”, he continued.

As the second biggest sponsor after Supervalu, Repak receive significant recognition of their sponsorship from the DoEHLG, LA’s, and the large dedicated teams of volunteers involved in the competition annually; as well as national media coverage, and accordingly have an effective opportunity to liaise with community leaders around the country and inform them of our activities and ambitions.

Repak Launch Easter Campaign 2007

Ø A tower of the 6 million Easter Eggs boxes consumed this year would
stretch to over 900km reaching all the way to Paris from Dublin
Ø Irish households to eat almost 1 million kilograms of chocolate over
the Easter period.
Ø 490,000 kilos of Easter Eggs used packaging will be generated.
Ø Repak Campaign calls for Irish public to recycle used Easter egg
packaging including the PET plastic moulded egg inserts
Ø Repak Recycling Hints and Tips for Easter 2007 revealed.
Ø 1 million bottles of wine will be consumed over the Easter period.

Irish chocoholics will this year consume enough Easter Eggs to create a monster egg over 5 times the height of the new U2 Tower in the Docklands at 614 meters high and 425 meters wide according to research by Repak, the packaging recycling scheme. A trail of the 6 million Easter Eggs boxes consumed this year would stretch to over 900km reaching all the way to Paris from Dublin and contain enough chocolate to fill 6 Olympic sized swimming pools. The facts were released as part of this years’ Repak Easter Campaign, which is urging householders to getting cracking and make an egg-stra effort to recycle the 490,000 kilos of cardboard, plastic and aluminium packaging from Easter egg boxes.

With over quarter of Irish people claiming they will have a few alcoholic drinks on Good Friday it is estimated that the resultant Easter festivities will generate over 15 million beverage cans and 1 million bottles of wine. Repak is urging all households to use their household collections, Recycling Centers and BringBanks to recycle all of this used packaging rather than sending it to landfill.

National Spring Clean 2007

An Taisce’s National Spring Clean campaign 2007 has now come to its conclusion and initial estimates from An Taisce point to it being the largest to date. The campaign was launched in Bray on April 2nd by Dick Roche TD, former Minister for the Environment and received tremendous coverage in the national press and TV media.

Since then over 4,000 events have taken place throughout the country, with over 398,000 volunteers giving up there own time to help reduce litter in Ireland. This number is up from 3,594 events and 341,000 participants in 2006

It is Repak’s fourth year to get on board and to encourage that all recyclables collected would be recycled in the various available amenities. To ensure this Repak again sponsored the colour coded refuse sacks used for collecting recyclable materials which An Taisce sends to all registered groups. Last year (2006), an estimated 3,340 tonnes of litter was collected of which 35% was recycled. National Spring Clean Manager, Emlyn Cullen expressed his thanks to all the campaigns sponsors, “It is only with their generous on-going support that the Spring Clean continues to grow year on year”, he said.

A major boost to the campaign this year came with the launch of a new website: http://www.nationalspringclean.org/. For the first time participants could now register their events online. The website has been very successful with 10% of all registrations coming through the site.

Congratulation to all those who gave up there time to take part and make this the most successful Spring Clean ever!

Repak Oireachtas Evening

In March of this year, Repak invited members of the Oireachtas to an informal briefing session in the Royal College of Physicians, Dublin.

The purpose of the event was to highlight the success of Repak in its 10 years of being and to highlight the issues that still face the company and its members.

Repak CEO, Dr. Andrew Hetherington expressed his confidence that Ireland can indeed achieve its 2011 packaging recycling target of 60%, however with an added note of warning, he concluded that if we are to mirror the success of our European counterparts, support from all sectors would be necessary for Ireland to hit recycling rates of 95%.


“We need all of the players in the game working off the same gameplan”, he said. “That includes business, Government, local authorities, waste collectors, schools and householders