22nd February 2005

An Taoiseach

Waste Disposed Of In The Department

Ciarán Cuffe asked the Taoiseach the total weight of waste that his Department produces within its own offices in the last year for which figures are available; the breakdown of the weight produced by paper, glass aluminium and steel cans, textiles, plastics organic waste, electrical and electronic equipment, batteries, hazardous waste and mixed waste respectively; the percentage of weight in each category which is recycled; and the details of any contracts his Department has for this disposal, reduction or re-use of waste.  

An Taoiseach: My Department does not have a figure for the total weight of waste disposed of per year. We do, however, have a figure for the quantity of paper waste disposed of - the amount in 2004 was 104,000 Kg. All paper and cardboard waste is recycled. Paper waste is disposed of through a private contractor, Leech Papers Limited. This contractor also removes cardboard free of charge for recycling.

Redundant photocopiers are removed by our current suppliers Toshiba Ireland, who comply with the EC Directive on Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) and EC Directive on the Restriction of the Use of Certain Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Equipment (RoHS) on the disposal of photocopiers.

During 2004, my Department had three areas of IT hardware disposals. These included:

Empty toner cartridges are boxed and collected by a company called Ergo Services for recycling. As part of this arrangement, Ergo Services donate a sum for each toner cartridge returned to them for recycling to The Jack and Jill Foundation charity;

Hardware that is still useable but not good enough for newer applications is made available for re-use. A number of these PCs were disposed of to staff in my Department, for a nominal fee, while others were given, free of charge, to a charity called PCs for Africa and to schools/community groups; and

Hardware which could not be recycled / reused was disposed of in 2004 to a company called Systems 2000 (following a tendering process). This comprised 62 monitors, 42 PCs, 11 laptops, 12 printers, 47 keyboards, 1 scanner and 2 routers. None of this equipment was of any further practical use.

We are in the process of putting in place arrangements for recycling of cans and plastic bottles.

General waste is removed by Dublin City Council. We are continually reviewing the possibility of increasing the amount of such waste which can be disposed of by recycling.  Most stationery used by my Department is recycled paper.