€630,693 was paid by Clare County Council to a third party operator in 2019 for collections from recycling centres.

An estimated income of €193,900 is received by the local authority from recyclable materials. This is generated from the fee paid by personnel for the recycling of textiles (155 tonnes), scarp metals (459 tonnes), batteries (10 tonnes), waste electrical items (550 tonnes) and repak subsidies which includes cardboard, glass, steel, aluminium, plastic bottles and paper.

A third party operator was handed €630,693 for the collection of materials from five recycling centres and fifty bring banks in 2019. The county’s main recycling centres are located in Inagh, Ennis, Shannon, Lisdeen and Scariff.

Members of the Clare public deposited a wide range of materials in recycling centres last year which had a total cost of €630,693. The full breakdown of the recycled items and their cost is glass (2412 tonnes, €149,337), timber (1137 tonnes, €153,275), hard plastic (303 tonnes), cardboard (263 tonnes, €30,000), mixed plastic bottles (253 tonnes, €84741), paper (170 tonnes, €14,200), steel cans (45 tonnes, €11,950), tetra pak (8 tonnes, €5,800). Both bulky waste (78 tonnes, €21,792) and mattresses (37 tonnes, €16,344) can only be disposed at the Inagh recycling centre. €46,000 was the overall cost for the recycling of waste oil.

Such figures were presented at the January meeting of Clare County Council in response to a motion from Cllr Cillian Murphy (FF). “I’m very happy with the answer. I will take the information and work away with it”.