Legislation

Commercial waste regulations

Enhanced Commercial Waste Regulations came into force on July 1st, 2023.

This introduced incentivised waste charging and other changes for waste collection to increase sustainability in the commercial sector.

Legislation

What the measures in the enhanced regulations will mean for business:

• All waste collection companies will be required to provide a residual, mixed dry recyclable and bio waste bin to all their commercial customers.
• Waste collection companies must ensure that all business customers are placed onto a price plan that ensures that the cost to the customer for mixed dry recyclable or bio-waste is less than the cost of disposal for municipal waste. The introduction of this measure should not result in higher waste collection charges for business customers.
• All waste collected must be weighed, with details on the weights of the individual bins communicated to customers.
• Waste collection companies will be required to at least collect these recyclable waste materials.
• Collection of recyclable waste and bio-waste must occur at least fortnightly.

A study published by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2018 found that 70% of the contents of the average commercial waste bin could be diverted to recycling. This represents a massive loss of potentially recyclable material and an unnecessarily high cost to businesses, whose waste charges would be lowered through proper segregation. Improved waste segregation in the commercial sector can also make a significant contribution to achieving our EU recycling targets. Ireland faces challenging targets under the EU Waste Framework Directive for recycling municipal solid waste (MSW) of 55% by 2025, 60% by 2030 and 65% by 2035. The most recent figures from the EPA show that we achieved a rate of 41% in 2020.

The Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, Eamon Ryan, has signed new legislation to introduce incentivised charging for waste collection in the commercial sector. The Waste Management (Collection Permit) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2023 will come into effect on 1 July 2023.

A national campaign will commence in July 2023 and will initially focus on guidance from waste collectors to their businesses, followed later in the year on promoting further opportunities on what business can do.