Clare has a chance to “lead in the west” by bringing the ‘paint re-use scheme’ into operation, the sole Sinn Féin representative of the local authority has said.
Monday’s meeting of Clare County Council heard a proposal from Cllr Donna McGettigan (SF) that the local authority “bring the paint re-use scheme to Clare”. Cllr Susan Crawford (GP) seconded the motion.
She outlined, “This is a relatively new scheme which aims to divert paint from disposal or incineration and to provide if possible an affordable, good quality paint for reuse in the local community or to be reused through the councils maintenance department”.
Under the scheme, paint is made available for free use for various community projects. Mungret Civic Amenity Centre in Limerick offers a paint reuse scheme, which allows users to leave any unused tins of paint and pick up ones that they might use themselves. Environmental officer, Karen Foley is listed as the Clare point of contact for the initiative.
Senior engineer, Cyril Feeney noted that the initiative was supported by the Local Authority Prevention Network with projects starting recently in Cork and Dublin. “We will contact Cork County Council to develop a better understanding of how the system operates and examine the feasibility of introducing a similar scheme in County Clare,” he responded.
Funding for Cork City and County Council was granted under the EPA’s Local Authority Prevention Network (LAPN) programme for the joint scheme resulting in unused water-based paints in Civic Amenity Sites diverted towards two social enterprises.
Speaking at Monday’s sitting in glór, Cllr McGettigan detailed that the amount of paint tins used in Ireland each year was unknown and added, “in general fifty percent of waste point is still usable”. She believed this could be made available to schools and communities for numerous projects and felt the introduction of such an initiative would result in Clare “leading the way in the west”.
