L to R: Pat O’Donnell, Sean Campbell, Heather Loughlin, Ronan Douglas (GIY), Maurice Cremin, Martin Eves & Derry Murphy, pictured at GORC conference.

GIY Ireland is a non profit charity with over 150,000 members. Its aim is to help people grow their own vegetables. GIY and Cré have drafted up a three year partnership plan.    

In this partnership plan, GIY Ireland will assist Cré with the following:
• Data collection from its members on Cré surveys
• Incorporating brownbin.ie educational tools into the GIY school programmes
• Three years of promotional campaigns to their members e.g. pay by weight/brown bin in 2016

In addition, Cré will be promoted as one of the main sponsors of Grow Circle/ Grown HQ in Waterford (http://www.giyinternational.org/grow_hq) and provided with an advert space in the GIY magazine.

Cré sought support from members to fund this programme and we are delighted to announce the following members have pledged their support to the three year programme;

                 Cremin Farm Compost

Best Practice Guide for Door to Door Brown Bin Education

The National Brown Bin Awareness Pilot project took place in Sligo. Based on the experiences from the pilot, a best practice guide for door to door education of householders on how to use a brown bin collection service has been developed.

View the full guide here.

The guide can be used by a waste collection company or by a local authority as part of an education programme.

It is based mainly on the experiences of the three brown bin advisors (Margaret Dunleavy, David McGovern and Rachel Finan), who conducted the national pilot of the brown bin advisors programme in Sligo city from July 2014 to March 2015. During the pilot, an estimated 3,000 face to face interviews with householders were conducted.

It is recommended that if a local authority is going to do an education programme that it is conducted in partnership with all the local waste collectors. It is important that all the waste collectors give a full commitment to the programme as without it, the programme will not be successful.

This report contains the following sections:
• Planning
• Preparation in advance of going door to door
• Face to face interviews
• Problems encountered by the Sligo team
• Advice for waste collectors

There is an appendix that contains templates with recommended resources.

Key Recommendations
• Develop constructive partnership and effective communications with all key stakeholders – e.g. local authorities, waste collectors, processors (compost/biogas plants), and any third party service delivery company
• Establish priority goals early in the programme
• Maximise the use of available resources
• Be flexible and willing to tweak / change the programme during the project

Special thanks are due to the following organisations who provided funding for the pilot;
• The Department of Environment, Community and Local Government
• Sligo County Council
• Novamont
• Cré- Composting and Anaerobic Digestion Association of Ireland

                                                                   L to R: Martin Eves (Cré), Minister Alan Kelly & Percy Foster (Cré)

Minister Kelly Launches Brownbin.ie

“Brownbin.ie provides a valuable platform for householders to understand the importance of recycling food waste using their brown bin.” said Mr Alan Kelly, T.D., Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, on 9th October 2015 at the launch of www.brownbin.ie at OD Agri Compost Site, Tipperary.

Since July of this year the provision of a separate collection service for food waste has benefited almost all areas of the country. The Minister noted that the food waste regulations introduced by his Department have already contributed to an increase in the recycling of food waste which reduces our greenhouse gas emissions, helps meet our EU landfill diversion targets and will support new job creation in the production of high quality compost for use in agriculture, landscaping and horticulture.

Minister Kelly stated “As pay-by-weight comes on stream and more householders are encouraged to recycle their food waste, brownbin.ie will be a handy toolkit for families to learn what food to recycle and how to recycle their bio-waste correctly and reduce their waste bill”. The website has a wealth of information including questions and answers on a range of food waste topics and details of waste collectors operating across the country.

The Minister noted that “The correct use of the brown bin will increase the amount of food waste that is recovered for the production of energy, compost and digestate, bringing opportunities for added value through job creation- this is the essence of the circular economy.”

Martin Eves Chairman of Cré said “The successful rollout of the brown bin is dependent on appropriate education and awareness measures being introduced to support households in using the brown bin correctly. We were delighted to partner with the Department of Environment, Community and Local Government to develop the website; www.brownbin.ie, to provide the public with the information required to use the brown bin appropriately”

Brownbin.ie was jointly funded by Cré – Composting and Anaerobic Digestion Association of Ireland and the Department of Environment, Community and Local Government.

Diverting food waste from the more expensive residual bin to the brown bin will save households money and with the average Irish householder discarding up to €1,000 worth of food each year, brownbin.ie has lots of information and tips on how to prevent food waste arising in the first place.  Why not click on www.brownbin.ie and discover how to recycle your food waste and play your part in helping the environment, contribute to the circular economy and save money through the effective use of the brown bin in your home today.