Municipal Waste Quantities

Predicted Growth in Municipal Waste up to 2025.
Ireland's Environment 2012 (EPA, 2012).

Municipal solid waste includes household, commercial (including non-process industrial waste) and street cleansing waste (street sweepings, street bins and municipal parks and cemeteries maintenance waste, litter campaign material). In Ireland, the generation of waste grew rapidly during the recent economic boom. However, waste generation has decreased during the current economic downturn, as can be seen in the chart above.

National policy on waste management is set out in "A Resource Opportunity", published in July 2012. This sets out the measures through which Ireland will make the further progress necessary to become a recycling society, with a clear focus on resource efficiency and the virtual elimination of landfilling of municipal waste (DECLG, 2013). This is critical in light of the projections contained in the chart above, which indicates a significant rise in waste tonnage up to 2025.