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Abstract
Despite a number of campaigns conducted in Ireland to increase awareness about appropriate waste management, waste enforcement is still a significant issue. Decisions such as the privatisation of waste collection services and the introduction of new waste charges have contributed to some of the classic waste enforcement issues, like illegal dumping. In addition, the current economic recession affects the resources that local authorities have available to implement enforcement actions. In order to analyse the current situation of waste enforcement in Ireland, a survey was carried out amongst the 34 environmental departments within the Irish local authorities. This paper presents the survey findings. From the results, the principal current waste enforcement issues are extracted and compared with previous studies in the field. In addition, an analysis of the resources employed with regard to technology, personnel, legal prosecutions and best practices is also performed. The technologies and practices used are evaluated for efficiency at reducing the main illegal actions, such as illegal dumping, and compared to international best practices. Finally, the actions carried out by the local authorities in terms of public awareness and environmental education are reviewed.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the EPA for their generous support for the research presented in this article through the Strive programme and the research grant 2011-ET-MS-11. They would also like to thank all the Irish local authorities who collaborated in this study by completing the survey. Finally, they would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for the insightful feedback which contributed to improve the quality of this paper.
Funding
This work was supported by the Environmental Protection Agency [grant number 2011-ET-MS-11].