Repak rises to challenge of meeting EU recycling goals

Despite his passion for the environment, Repak chief Andrew Hetherington is no sandal-wearing tree-hugger, but a pragmatist with a can-do approach. Colm Ward reports.

Andrew Hetherington is a rare specimen - a pragmatic environmentalist. Clad in a smart suit in his office overlooking the Naas Road, he may not fit the traditional image of the sandal-wearing environmentalist but his enthusiasm is very apparent.

"All along, my real passion in life - my hobby - has been the environment," he says. Mr Hetherington has been at the helm of Repak since it was set up in 1997 by industry and the Department of the Environment as a compliance scheme to enable member companies to meet their EU obligations when it comes to recycling their packaging waste.

The regulations stipulate that any business with an annual turnover in excess of €1.27 million and that supplies more than 25 tonnes of packaging must recycle a large portion of that waste.

Repak currently has 900 member companies in the Republic. The company's results for 2001 show that 237,000 tonnes of packaging waste were recycled, well above the target of 200,000 tonnes set for the Republic by the EU. And Mr Hetherington is confident that Repak can meet its next set of targets.

"Our target going forward is 50 per cent [of packaging waste\] by 2005. Our first tranche of targets, which we exceeded in 2001, was for 25 per cent," he explains.

Of the three countries assigned a target of 25 per cent - the other two being Portugal and Greece - only Ireland reached that target. The other EU member-states currently have a target of 50 per cent, which the Republic will have to achieve within three years.

Mr Hetherington said the Republic's initial target was lower than other countries for a number of factors, largely due to the fact that the State had no history of recycling. Over the past five years, he has seen attitudes towards recycling change "dramatically", with all sections of society - householders, business, government, local authorities - becoming involved in the recycling process.

Under his leadership, Repak has set out to involve these "stakeholders" at all stages. "We have successfully developed a partnership ethos where we want to work with people. We don't want to fight with other stakeholders, we don't want to attribute blame. We want to be a catalyst, take a leadership role, but to bring us all up to where we should be," he says.

It is only through this partnership approach, he believes, that the costs associated with recycling can be kept to a minimum. That partnership approach is also being used to find ways in which a viable recycling industry can be developed in Ireland.

Recycling is a volume-driven business and, as the recent closure of the Irish Glass Bottle company demonstrates, the population of the Republic is insufficient to support a viable recycling industry.

In view of this, Mr Hetherington has been working with industry and government in Northern Ireland and Europe with a view to making such industry viable.

"We are trying to exploit opportunities to add value to our own economy. But where that doesn't look possible on our own, we're looking at all-Ireland first of all and then we're looking at European strategic alliances," he says. Such strategic alliances might see large recyclers on the European mainland set up smaller pre-processing plants in Ireland, for example.

Mr Hetherington believes that the consumer will ultimately foot the bill for any additional costs associated with recycling, so it is in everyone's interest to ensure that those costs are kept to a minimum.

"I'm not trying to defend industry. Nor am I trying to penalise them. I'm trying to get the job done in the best way for Ireland," he says.

"Industry can't absorb these costs anyway so they add it onto the product cost, and it ends up that the consumer meets those costs anyway. What I say is we've all got a vested interest in getting value for money."

That value-for-money approach may also involve options that are not particularly popular. Mr Hetherington believes that Ireland needs a "mixed menu" of waste disposal options and he supports the use of incineration, albeit in a limited way.

"We do need to have thermal treatment, but I would say only for domestic waste. I think that for hazardous or chemical waste, we should look at all options and keep them separate. I think what I'm referring to with incineration, with thermal recovery, really involves those comingled bits of our household waste that it doesn't make sense to try and separate because they're so heavily contaminated," he says.

"I'm not an advocate of that being the only solution. It should be there but only for materials that you can get added value for. The added value from incineration is you're getting the energy back." Other options such as landfill also need to be considered.

"At the end of the day, we will always have residue, we will always have certain materials that we need to, what I call, 'land store', and with modern landfill techniques, you can decide whether you want them to be safely stored and then you develop maps of what you're putting where for future generations."

He believes that the NIMBY (not in my back yard) attitude is a problem in Ireland. People do not want waste disposal facilities of any kind to be situated near them and are reluctant to give consideration to the options available to them.

When faced with this NIMBYism at public meetings, his response is a pragmatic one. "I say: Stop telling me what you don't want and start telling me what you do want. Because life, unfortunately, will involve compromises and [we need\] to find out what is acceptable here and that's what we build on.

"We haven't quite got to the stage where we're able to agree amongst ourselves what we would be happy to accept."

As part of the drive to encourage recycling, Repak has recently launched a new strategy which will see an additional 850 'bring-bank' facilities located throughout the Republic, Mr Hetherington said. Each facility will have five banks - three for glass, one for plastic bottles and one for metal packaging.

Mr Hetherington is confident that schemes such as this, when allied with industry involvement, will allow the Republic to achieve its target to recycle 50 per cent of packaging waste by 2005. The Republic is on course to meet its target of 270,000 tonnes for this year.

He believes, however, that industry working alone cannot reach these targets and that everyone will need to get involved to ensure that they are reached.

"Our responsibilities are to educate industry on how they can segregate, separate, size-reduce and adopt best practice," he says.

"But at the front end, we're about developing a partnership and the partnership is between key stakeholders and they are the government, local authorities, industry through Repak, the householder, schoolchildren, collectors, recyclers - all of those people - so that we work together to deliver Ireland's targets in the best way for Ireland."