Soft plastics can now go in your green bin…
You can now place all plastic into your green (recycling) bin – once it is clean, dry and loose.
What does this include?
- This includes both soft and rigid plastics – everything from a plastic bottle to the plastic film on fruit packs!
Why the change?
- In recent years, there have been many improvements in the technology used for plastic recycling. For example, some Irish recycling facilities now use state of the art optical sorting equipment that can identify different plastic types based on reflection and refraction of light beams, which has increased the opportunity to recycle more plastics. This coupled with continued advancements in technology and the emergence of new markets for different plastic types will also play an important role in plastic recycling into the future.
What will happen to the soft plastic?
- Most of the soft plastics will be sorted and turned into “bales” and sent to recycling plants in Europe and Asia.
- Any remaining plastics can be converted to a Solid Recovered Fuel (SRF) which is used in cement kilns. This replaces fossil fuels, which has a positive impact in terms of lower greenhouse gas emissions.
- By putting all clean, dry and loose plastic into your green bin we can ensure that no recyclable plastic inadvertently ends up in landfill. As technology improves and more types of plastic can be recycled, recycling system will be able to sort and pick them up without delay.
For a downloadable recycling list – click here.
For more information from MyWaste.ie – click here.
