Major changes to business waste collection in effort to deliver cleaner city

Dublin City Council has this evening introduced a new 3 Pillar Waste Management Strategy to Councillors to deliver a cleaner city, including a provision that prevents commercial premises within designated parts of the city centre from presenting their waste in plastic bin bags.

This provision will begin with a transition period starting from 16th September 2024, with full compliance expected by 1st January 2025.

The new 3 pillar strategy was introduced at the monthly Council meeting under Lord Mayor's business by the Lord Mayor of Dublin James Geoghegan.

"Dublin is not 'a dirty old town' but for too long commercial premises have been allowed present their rubbish in plastic bags while homeowners have used wheelie bins,"said the Lord Mayor. "The shop or the restaurant closes and the plastic bag of waste is left in front of the premises to be demolished by a seagull. A recent issue has also emerged with plastic bags being ripped open by people looking for containers that can be brought to machines to collect the deposit on. The effect of this strategy in the short term is that commercial premises along Dawson Street, Grafton Street down to George's Street and Temple Bar will no longer be able to present their waste in plastic bags. The City Council has met with the private bin operators in our city and they are going to provide more flexible solutions for restaurants and shops which have nowhere to put a wheelie bin but without dumping rubbish on the street in a plastic bag."

Pillar 1 looks at Operational Enhancements, Pillar 2 examines Enforcement and Regulation Change, while Pillar 3 deals with a Litter Awareness and Prevention Advertising Campaign.

"I am delighted to see this new strategy being introduced," said Dublin City Council Chief Executive Richard Shakespeare. "On taking up the position as Chief Executive, one of my first objectives was to deliver a cleaner city that we can all be proud of. This ambitious new strategy goes a long way to achieving that objective and I look forward to its implementation. I firmly believe that when it comes to any major capital city such as ours, if you can get the basics right that is half the battle. In my role as Chief Executive that is exactly what I am working towards every day."

Pillar 1

• Employ an additional 100 operational staff, which will increase the workforce to 540
• Under the first phase of the recruitment process, 32 of the 100 new staff began work in July. They have all been assigned to the city-centre. This will increase staff numbers on each of the 3 crews operating in the city-centre from 38 to 50 and will mean that there will then be 150 staff covering shifts 6am to 9pm 7 days a week
• Once all new staff are familiar with service requirements, we will then expand the footprint of the city-centre area that receives this 24 hour cleaning service. We expect this expansion to take place within the next 10-12 weeks
• The next phase of the recruitment process will begin in the coming weeks and extend into Q4 of this year. Some of the staff recruited in this phase will be assigned to bolster resources in our city-wide wash crews while others will join a new city-wide rapid response team. This new team will be responsible for reacting to enquiries about issues such as road/pavement maintenance, illegal dumping, litter bin washing etc
• The final phase of recruitment will take place in Q1 2025. This will provide extra staff resources to work in suburban areas from 2pm to 10pm
• To complement the increase in staff resources, we are also undertaking a €8.5m enhancement and upgrade of the waste management fleet. This includes 22 new compact sweeper vehicles, new wash vans, 5 new heavy goods vehicles, the replacement of 60 of our side loader fleet (50% of which will be electric), 27 new hand vac mechanical sweepers and new cycle lane sweepers.

Pillar 2

• Employ additional litter wardens to improve our enforcement capabilities, with a particular focus on takeaways and licensed premises
• In 2016, approximately 1,000 streets were designated as 'Bag Collections Areas'. The properties on these streets were given a derogation on having to use a reusable receptacle such as a wheelie bin and were instead allowed present their waste in plastic bags. We have begun a review of this arrangement and intend to commence a process to remove this derogation on as many streets as possible. From 16th September 2024 a transition period will begin for owners/occupiers of retail, commercial and residential buildings in the designated Phase 1 area, who will not be allowed present waste in plastic bags on city streets for collection. Full compliance is expected by 1st January 2025. There are 90 streets covered in this phase including, but not limited to, Aungier St, Baggot St Lower, Chatham St, College Green, Dame St, Exchequer St, Fleet St, Grafton St, Kildare St, Molesworth St, Nassau St, Parliament St, St Stephens Green, Temple Bar
• All businesses and households in the Central Commercial District area are permitted to present waste for collection 7 days a week. Waste can be presented after 5pm each day and must be removed from the kerbside by 10am the following day. We feel this window for collection should be reduced and we intend to commence a process to bring about this change

Pillar 3

• Deliver a litter awareness and prevention campaign to bring about a change in culture and public behaviour. Delivering this change is perhaps the biggest challenge we face. The campaign will focus on education along with warnings on enforcement
• As an extension of the campaign, we are also keen to explore all opportunities to prevent littering. One way of doing this is to reduce the presentation of waste in plastic bags for collection. Another trial in the pipeline is a 'Shared Bins BETA trial', looking at the potential of a communal storage area in a residential setting.
• We are also looking at other products for customers to use which can replace or protect plastic bags on the kerbside, including the reusable caddie and 'Bagbin' project.

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