By Alissa MacMillan
Q: We have a brown bin at home and often use it, but there is a debate happening in the house. I think no plastic is allowed in, others think a bit is okay, it will get sorted out later. Who’s right?
A: In answer to your excellent question, you are far and away the winner in this debate. In your family’s defense, the system is built to handle some of that plastic, but it’s not the ideal scenario.
The brown bin program has been a huge success in Ireland, but questions like yours show there is still progress to be made. Across the entire cycle of food, including its growing, production, manufacture, retail, and consumption, we still waste about 30% of what’s produced, explains Pauline McDonogh, Circular Economy Coordinator with the Southern Region Waste Planning Office in Limerick and spokesperson for National Food Waste Recycling Week, happening from May 30th-June 7th.
“We have a lot of food waste we need to deal with,” she says, from both households and the hotel and food sector.
The recent rollout of the brown bins, which is available to all rural and urban households, has been a great success: in 2024, 80% of households had a brown bin, with signs showing it will be closer to 90% in 2025. Of those 80% of households who have the bin, approximately 67% regularly put it out for collection. The contamination rate for bins, mainly from plastics, metal, and glass, is at 9%, with plastics being one of the worst infiltrators.
“Plastics quite often come from people not using a compostable liner,” explains McDonogh. “They might use a plastic shopping bag or might buy what they thought was compostable but is actually only biodegradable.”
As for the journey of your compost beyond the bin, McDonogh explains that the truck comes along, emptying all the brown bins “into a big, jumbled mess in the back of the truck.” At the processing plant, they do “de-bagging,” an effort to remove as much as they can of the plastic bags, “but it’s not as perfect as it could be,” the risk being that as bags get shredded at the plant, some plastic gets into the processing, which means microplastics get into the soil.
“Waste collectors have been brilliant,” McDonogh adds, for both household and commercial premises, even helping with de-bagging. “They are doing their bit, and now we need the public to use the service as wisely as they possibly can.”
‘STOP AND THINK ABOUT FOOD WASTE’
Composting done right couldn’t be better for both the climate and for the country.
The composting program contributes to the circular economy, as “we process all material on the island of Ireland, either making compost or using anaerobic digestion to make green energy or fertilizer from this material,” she says. It’s truly circular as well: we are not exporting the waste to be treated in another country and it’s creating green jobs.
On the climate side, “if we treat the material properly, we reduce methane emissions from converting waste to energy (incineration) or into landfill, which both create extra emissions.” But composting creates green energy or fertilizer, a home-grown resource, sidestepping the extra emissions.
The brown bin is used more in the summertime, she says, which makes sense with added garden waste, more oft-changing plans, and food spoiling that much more quickly in the heat, this being a perfect moment “to stop and think about food waste and try and learn to upskill ourselves to do it better.” The purpose of the week is to learn together, to allow us to think about the food we generate, and to prevent waste, she says.
“If you take one thing away from National Food Recycling Week, it’s to use compostable bags in the brown bins,” McDonogh adds. To complaints that the compostable bags cost money, she suggests using brown paper bags you have around or even old newspaper, all of which are compostable, although you’ll need to wash out your kitchen caddy a bit more to keep it from getting smelly.
PUT OUT BROWN BIN REGULARLY
Apart from keeping out plastics, metals and glass, McDonogh has a few other quick observations and tips.
One thing collectors see a lot of is food still in its packaging, simply chucked in the brown bin, like half-eaten tubs of hummus or coleslaw. “You must remove the packaging from the food,” McDonogh explains, this sometimes requiring pulling out a spatula to scoop it out of the tub, which they recommend as a good method for facing “the yuk factor,” or even using a bit of white kitchen roll and wrapping it up for composting.
Newspaper and white kitchen roll can be used, for example, for wiping down a frying pan, the system liking small amounts of carbon rich products in the food waste. “If you have half a dozen eggs in a cardboard carton and an egg gets broken, pull off that piece of carboard with the egg and throw it in the brown bin,” putting the rest of the box in dry recycling. The same for things like pizza boxes: take the dirty part and put it in the brown bin, and the dry in recycling. As for dry recycling, we’re at a 40-41% recycling rate, she notes, so it’s great to put only clean and dry items, or parts of items, in the blue bin.
If you buy take-away food, there are many restaurants using compostable packaging, McDonogh adds. If it is compostable, you can put it in the brown bin, oil residue and all. If not, it has to go in the general waste bin.
There are also moments, especially in winter, when we might only have one bag of food waste, so might not be bothered putting out the brown bin until it’s pretty full. But their suggestion is not to wait.
“Organic material is nutritious and calorific, and we need it when it’s fresh, so the sooner we can get it into the system, the better,” McDonogh explains. “The longer we leave it, the less value it has, as it starts to decompose.” So, go ahead and put the brown bin out even when you only have a small amount.
Remember to check out mywaste.ie for more detailed information on composting, one of the simplest, cheapest, and most impactful eco-practices we can have.
“If we prevent our food waste and also use our brown bins properly, that is one of the everyday actions that are really climate friendly,” she adds. “There are also no barriers. It’s one small step that everybody can take.”
