The Environmental Protection Agency’s National Waste Prevention Programme’s conference ResourceWise 2011 was held on Wednesday 1 June 2011 at the Radisson Blu St. Helen’s Hotel in Dublin.
The event highlighted the wide range of work underway in Ireland in several sectors of society to minimise and prevent waste and encourage resource efficiency, and thereby reduce operational overheads for organisations.
A wide range of presentations were given to highlight the work being done in this field. Click on the links to download each presentation:
Final conference programme, 382kb
Evening briefing – Jonathan Derham, 3,661kb
1 Karolina Fras – DG Environment, 2,505kb
2 Rory O’Donnell – NESC, 221kb
4 Richard Hogan – Glanbia Consumer Foods, 343kb
5 Karl Dalton – Connolly Hospital, 2,039kb
6 Caitriona McGroary – St. Helen’s Hotel, 915kb
7 Brian Motherway – SEAI, 569kb
8 Colm Moran – Thomond Park, 1,200kb
9 Colum Gibson – Stop Food Waste, 3,482kb
A summary of the Local Authority Prevention Demonstration (LAPD) Programme from 2006 – 2009 has now been published. The Programme, which was supported by the Environmental Protection Agency as part of the National Waste Prevention Programme (NWPP), demonstrated a wide range of successful projects involving 14 local authorities. These have improved resource efficiency (waste, water and energy) practices in local businesses, communities and within the local authorities themselves, with significant cost savings.
Click here to download the full report.
Click here to see a quick infographic of the results for LAPD and LAPN.
The report highlights the sucesses of the programme over a four year period, whereby local authorities undertook ambitious actions across a range of sectors including:
- Public Administration
- Business
- Communities
- Farms
- Schools and 3rd level institutions
- Healthcare
- Retail
Hospitality and Tourism
Cost savings included:
- Direct cost savings: > €873,000 per annum
- Waste prevented/diverted: > 2,300 tonnes pre annum
- Water consumption reduced: > 37,5000 tonnes per annum
- Energy reduction: > 1,530,000 kWh per annum
More than 2,500 people participated in LAPD, with 300 audits and 26 people were trained in Waste and Resource Use Prevention.
The capacity built up within local authorities, and the ability and experience of the personnel involved, can ensure successful development of future resource efficiency programmes within Ireland. Indeed, Irish local authorities can now be regarded as leaders in this respect.
Ireland is gearing up for the European Week for Waste Reduction (EWWR) with many different projects and events in several parts of the country.
EWWR is a 3 year project supported by the LIFE+ Programme of the European Commission until 2011. In 2010, the Week will take place from the 20th to the 28th November 2010. To learn more about EWWR click here.
EWWR was set up to raise awareness about EU waste reduction strategies and policies; to promote sustainable waste reduction actions across Europe; to highlight the work accomplished by various actors, through concrete examples of waste reduction and to encourage changes in the behaviour of Europeans’ consumption and production in everyday life.
Who is involved?
EWWR mainly involves national and local authorities, NGOs, educational establishments and also businesses. In Ireland it is being led by the EPA, with many different local authorities involved. Also involved are An Taisce, REPAK, Clean Technology Centre, Green Hospitality Programme, Celtic Anglian Water and others.
What’s being done in Ireland?
A lot is planned in Ireland for 2010, including media events; radio and press material being published; waste prevention promotion with communities, businesses, schools; seminars; displays in public areas; competitions etc. – all over Ireland!
To see full details of planned events click here.
What happened in 2009?
In 2009 Ireland was very active for the Waste Reduction Week and it was a great success.
For full details of Irish events in 2009 click here.
To see some pictures from the 2009 event in Cork Institute of Technology click here
The National Waste Prevention Programme has organised a workshop on Community Based Social Marketing for all those involved in NWPP programmes and projects and other proponents of sustainability in Ireland. This was held in the GHA gold award winner St. Helen’s Radisson Hotel Stillorgan, Dublin on October 18th and 19th, 2010.
The two day workshop was presented by a world leader in this field, the Canadian, Dr. Doug McKenzie-Mohr. For over twenty years Dr McKenzie-Mohr, an environmental psychologist, has been incorporating and delivery of community programs. He is the founder of community-based social marketing — an approach to delivering environmental behavioural change programs that is used throughout the world.
The workshop was very well attended by many of the sustainability practitioners in Ireland from a wide spread of programmes, organizations and affiliations such as: Local Authority Prevention Network; Local Authority Environmental Awareness Officers; Green Business Programme; €concertive; Green Hospitality Programme; An Taisce; Packaging Prevention Programme; Green Healthcare Programme; Environmental Protection Agency – Resource Use Unit; Comhar – Sustainable Development Council; Dingle Corca Dhuibhne Glas Project; Clean Technology Centre; Department of Environment Heritage & Local Government; Enterprise Ireland; rx3 – rethink, recycle, remake; Freetrade Ireland website; Green Communities Network; Ballynagran Zero Carbon Community Project; Cleaner Greener Production Programme et alia.
To learn more about Community Based Social Marketing click here
To see some photos from the event click here to go to our Flickr Site.
