The current Irish government has pledged to open no new landfills for a generation, so we have to be very strict in what we can comfortably allow into the current ones. This is a good thing, as it makes householders, businesses and government all think about their waste from an environmental viewpoint rather than just the convenience attitude some people currently seem to hold. Everyone in Ireland has to help us achieve this.

Reduce, reuse, recycle - we've all heard the slogan by now. But are we actually doing it as well as we could?

Reduce - buy less. This relates to food, drink, clothing, furniture, cars, in fact everything we do from when we enter this life till we leave it. That sounds a bit profound doesn't it? However, we are responsible for what we leave behind, for our children, and theirs, even when we're pushing up the daisies.

Do we need lots of pre-packaged ready meals, or can we buy the raw ingredients, fruit, vegetables, meat and create something we will enjoy?

Don't buy bags unless you need to, re-use bags you got on a previous visit to the shop, saves you the 22c government tax above anything else, but if there is a choice of recycle or re-use, then re-use is the obvious choice. Keep some in the car, and (girls) a fold-up one in your handbag.

Do we need a new outfit to go out in, just because there's a new fashion out this week? And 25 pairs of shoes in the wardrobe, gathering dust? Not really - buy 'classic' designs that will last - preferably shoes manufactured from leather rather than plastic, and made as locally as possible (Irish manufacturers please confirm that you do indeed exist).

If you have a printer, print on both sides of the paper. Refill your ink cartridges as many times as you can before disposal - the quality is getting better. Buy things that will last, and refillable (e.g. propelling pencils and pens you can buy refills for). There's a new gadget to replace the stapler, known affectionately as the staple-free stapler - it does something clever with the pieces of paper to be stapled together, and doesn't use any metal thingies to extract before shredding or cut your fingers on! 

Disposable nappies fill huge areas of landfill. If you can, then use the towelling ones - a dozen will see your baby from birth through to potty-training. Compared with the mountain of waste, the inconvenience is well worth the time, effort and energy (still looking for the report that I read). Still, use disposables when you go out for the day - can't think of a pleasant method of storing the dirty ones (yuk).

Reuse - this is effectively a better way of recycling.

You can buy second hand stuff, furniture, appliances, cars. Similarly, offering your 'out-of-date' or surplus to requirement 'stuff' for sale to others (in newspapers, websites, charity shops).

There are places in Ireland where you can take your computer equipment so it can be refurbished and given a new lease of life with new software and donated (or sold at minimal cost) to a charity or school.

Hand down clothing to younger siblings and friends' families.

School books can be donated to next year's pupils if they are in good condition - for some recompense I would suggest, as they're not inexpensive items.

Invest in rechargeable batteries - you can even get solar-powered chargers now to take on holiday with you. This reduces the huge amount of toxic waste we produce, in the form of discarded batteries, not always separated before disposal, and they end up in landfill sites. Saves money in the long run too.

When you get your post, reuse the envelopes as scrap paper, shopping lists, before you recycle them.

Be imaginative!

Take your magazines to doctors or dentist surgery, and old toys to children's hospital wards and children's homes. 

Waxed inner liners from cereal packets can be used to wrap sandwiches.

Let us know how and what you reuse as well.

When you go to the farm shop, take empty egg boxes and food cartons you got there previously, so they can reuse them.

Recycle - you'll be surprised at what can actually be recycled now.

Many cities, and increasingly rural areas, are getting kerbside collections of recycled as well as standard waste. Use these as much as possible to encourage councils to provide this service to everyone.

Civic amenity sites will take your old appliances and furniture, batteries, fluorescent tubes, CFLs and waste oil.

In order to make recycling a more cost-effective operation, there must be a market for its products - so when shopping look out for recycled goods. For example, dustbin sacks, kitchen towel, toilet rolls, printer paper.

Go to charity and second hand shops for individual items to furnish your home.

EU Waste Electronic and Electrical Equipment (WEEE) Directive which was introduced to Ireland in August 2005 seems to be a way of hiking prices. The whole principle behind this was to encourage manufacturers to reduce the amount of waste by improving their products, but in fact the consumer is being charged for this. The 'Polluter Pays' is supposed to be what the EU intended. Maybe this is something we should be lobbying our local TDs about.

Compost - yes, there's another option! Using a small space in your garden, you can place a plastic compost bin (normally made from recycled plastic) , or you could make your own out of old wood. After a few months you'll have some very usable compost to treat your flowers and vegetables to. You reduce the amount of waste going to landfill, and save devastation of more peat bogs into the bargain. Here's a list of what you can add to your compost heap/bin:-

  • Fruit and vegetable scraps, including banana and onion skins, potato peelings and apple cores
  • Eggshells
  • Tea bags
  • Coffee grounds
  • Old flowers
  • Any plant remains - nettle leaves are rich in nitrogen so encourage bacteria to break down woody content
  • Gerbil, hamster and rabbit bedding or faeces
  • Wood ash or sawdust
  • Cardboard
  • Paper towels and bags
  • Cardboard tubes
  • Egg boxes
  • Hair (yours or your pets')
  • Old spices and herbs
  • Pine needles
  • Matches
  • Birdcage cleanings
  • Stale bread
  • Old pasta
  • Milk
  • Melted ice cream
  • Stale crisps
  • Tobacco wastes (but not cigarette filters)
  • Nutshells
  • Mouldy cheese
  • Razor trimmings
  • Outdated yogurt
  • Nail clippings
  • Shrimp, crab or lobster shells
  • Bread and pie crusts
  • Cooked rice
  • Bad wine
  • Toothpicks
  • Pencil shavings
  • Woollen socks
  • Burnt toast
  • Feathers
  • Vacuum cleaner bag contents
  • Dead bees and flies

and what you can't:-

  • Meat
  • Fish
  • Cooked food
  • Coal and coke ash
  • Cat litter and dog faeces
  • Disposable nappies
  • Glossy magazines

In the future, there will be doorstep collections of kitchen and garden waste, separate from other waste, that will be composted in regional mechanical composters, and create compost that will be available for sale (watch this space). So, even if you don't have a garden you can still reduce your quota of landfill-destined waste.

Wormery - an extension of the composting idea, but as well as raw waste, you can put your cooked scraps, and meat offcuts in here, though not citrus (orange, lemon, lime, etc.). You can get them from fishing tackle shops now - they breed the same worms for bait! The compost from this source is more concentrated, so can be watered down and applied as a fertiliser.

By the way, if you weren't already aware, you can claim tax relief against waste disposal service costs - set it up online or phone your local tax office.

When disposing of large household items such as lounge suites, mattresses and washing machines, make sure you do so responsibly. Your local council will probably have a collection service. If not, then get a friendly neighbour with a suitable vehicle to help take it to your civic amenity site.

If you're a smoker, then put your cigarette ends either in an ashtray or a litter bin - don't just throw them out of your car window or onto the footpath. Apart from looking unsightly, they can be dangerous. With increasingly long dry spells (remember them!) there is a greater likelihood of fires starting, leading to large-scale forest fires - look at Northern Ireland earlier this year.

Burning your waste is not the answer - it releases harmful toxins into the atmosphere, increases greenhouse gases, and more often than not it can be disposed of safely elswewhere (compost heap, recycled, council amenity site). There are laws now to prevent burning rubbish in your garden, to avoid public health problems including respiratory complaints.

Incineration is being introduced in ireland, but with significant restrictions, and maybe even a tax to ensure that everything that can be recycled actually is. The heat produced as a by-product will be piped to local communities, so reducing the requirement for more fossil-fuel burning.

Waste water is causing issues in and around Irish waterways. Overnutrification is causing algal blooms and excesses of seaweed on beaches and in estuaries. We can help a little by buying organic Irish produce where possible, as this hasn't been sprayed with fertilisers. We can also reduce the amount of detergents, bleaches and chemical waste that goes down the sink. Try some of the 'eco' products for laundry, dishwashing. Use vinegar and newspaper for window-cleaning, lemon juice for worktops, tea tree oil for disinfecting your toilet. Note that septic tanks don't work as effectively with tough chemicals.

Don't flush unused medicines and pills down the toilet or sink. They can get into the drinking water eventually, and contaminate food-growing land. Return to the chemist or doctors surgery.

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