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Minister for Environment,
Heritage and Local Government: Households
served with segregated collection of dry recyclables can recycle their old
telephone directories by depositing them in their recyclables wheelie bin.
This service is being progressively rolled out, with over 560,000
households nationally – approximately 42% of all households in the State
– already in receipt of such service. Alternatively, households can
recycle their old directories by depositing them at civic amenity
sites/recycling centres. In the distribution cards circulated
simultaneously with the telephone directories, households are referred to
the inside back page of the Golden Pages Directory for information on the
recycling of old directories.
Council Directive 1999/31/EC on the
landfill of waste requires Member States to achieve specified targets for
the reduction of biodegradable waste consigned to landfill. A draft
National Biodegradable Waste Strategy setting out a range of integrated
measures aimed at providing an effective basis for the achievement of the
Directive targets was published earlier this year for public consultation.
While the draft strategy acknowledges that publishers of telephone
directories have taken positive steps to improve information on how to
recycle directories, it recommends that further progress to support their
collection and recovery is required. My Department has already held
discussions with the publishers of the telephone directories on possible
further measures that might be implemented in this regard, and will
endeavour to reach agreement on appropriate mechanisms to assist in the
achievement of specified targets in this area as soon as possible.
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