KILDARE GENERAL & LEIXLIP, 2 October 2002: Kildare County Council has set up a food waste composting facility at Silliot Hill which is designed to turn household food waste into compost. It is just one of the initiatives in waste treatment which are aimed at reducing the amount of household waste that go into landfill.
According to Paul Kelly, Fianna Fail councillor based in Leixlip, this has 'very exciting' possibilities. But he says there is still a long way to go in dealing with other recyclable waste. Despite a positive response to the Leixlip door-to-door collection of reclycable waste, only one in six food cans are being collected, for instance.
"This is one area where we could see an immediate increase in the amount of waste going to recycling," he says. "I appeal to people to think before putting anything in the ordinary waste bin. We should ask ourselves if there is anything else we could do with it – could it be re-used? Could it be composted? Could it be recycled? Could it be brought to a bring centre? The amount of stuff that can be recycled is increasing all the time, and new bring centres are appearing regularly. We have complained long enough that the facilities aren’t being provided – now that they are, let’s make full use of them."
The next step, he says, is to cut down on the production of waste in the first place. "Recycling is great, but it’s very costly. It costs money and resources to make something, and then more money and energy to recycle it. Shouldn’t we ask ourselves if we really need it in the first place? We’ve done just that very successfully with plastic bags – why not with other things?”
