The Irish Government passed the Circular Economy and Miscellaneous Provisions Act 2022 recently in a landmark move, making it an integral part of the nation’s law. The Act lays the groundwork necessary for Ireland to steer away from its ‘take-make-dispose’ linear model and towards more sustainable means of production and consumption. 

Some significant changes being introduced under this Act include: 

• Levies on all single-use packaging with the aim of progressively phasing out all single-use packaging from the supply chain 

• Incentives for the use of sustainable alternatives such as reusable products and making sustainable options more accessible 

• Mandates on the segregation of commercial waste  

• Ending the issuing of new licenses for the extracting and mining of coal, oil, and gas. 

“Through a mix of economic incentives and smarter regulation we can achieve far more sustainable patterns of production and consumption that move us away from the patterns of single-use and throw-away materials and goods that are such a wasteful part of our economic model now,” says Eamon Ryan, the Minister of the Environment, Climate and Communications. 

As the nation prepares to phase out single-use packaging, one of the main targets will be to become the world’s first country to eliminate the use of disposable coffee cups — an industry that currently sends around 200 million cups to landfill every year. 

“We have to re-think the way we interact with the goods and materials we use every day if we are to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions because 45% of those emissions come from producing those goods and materials,” says Ryan. 

With the introduction of this Act, the country has placed the circular economy on a statutory footing, solidifying its importance in Irish domestic law.