Cork County Council have confirmed that they anticipate the bottle banks in Kilworth will reopen ‘shortly’. 

The bottle banks, which were in popular use, are located to the rear of the Centra outlet in the village.

For a number of weeks they have had a notice on them advising that they are ‘closed for cleaning’ with locals contacting The Avondhu to report the closure as inconvenient, and with no notice as to when they may reopen. 

However, the council confirmed this week that they anticipate the public amenity to be reopened shortly. The provision of the ‘bring site’ was a condition of the planning development in 2004, for the nearby houses and retail unit in Glansheskin. 

The council also confirmed that it’s council staff that undertake the site clean-ups when necessary, and the bins or banks themselves are typically cleaned out once a year. There is a programme of site cleaning, but the council will, when necessary, do extra cleaning ‘in response to particular issues arising at specific sites’. 

Cork County Council runs an online facility to report full bottle banks, or can be contacted at recycling@corkcoco.ie, or 021-4285518.

Repak, the environmental not-for-profit organisation, have no role in site maintenance of bring sites. However, they do pay Local Authorities a grant, based on tonnages of material collected, which goes towards the cost of operating Bring Bank facilities.

The European Container Glass Federation reported that in 2019, Ireland achieved a rate of 84% for its glass recycling, better than the UK (72%) but falling behind Sweden and Slovenia, both with 99% rates of glass recycling.

Glass is 100% recyclable, and can be recycled endlessly with no loss of quality or purity.