A Sinn Féin senator has welcomed government confirmation that it won't oppose her party's bill on ending waste by corporations.
Lynn Boylan, Sinn Féin spokesperson on climate justice, spoke on her Ban on Dumping New Products Bill in the Seanad yesterday.
She argued the bill would end the practice of dumping unused goods by corporations, move the country towards a circular economy and bring Ireland in line with fellow EU countries.
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Speaking yesterday in the Seanad, Boylan said: "Our planet has finite resources and we cannot continue to waste them in a take-make-waste business model.
"A key problem that we believe was not addressed in the circular economy bill is that big corporations are dumping perfectly good products which have not been used. This is the most wasteful scenario conceivable in a linear economy.
"All of the waste associated with the mining of raw materials and the energy and labour that goes into manufacturing and distributing the product, only for it to go into the bin without delivering any benefit, is unconscionable, particularly in view of the environmental crisis we mace on multiple fronts.
"The Bill is a necessary step in the context of addressing this."
The senator called out the fashion and technology industries in particular as destroying or dumping usable products to maximise profits.
She went on: "With the proliferation of online shopping, this problem has reached alarming levels. Returned items, often in pristine condition, are recklessly discarded instead of being resold.
"Some luxury brands have been documented destroying goods to maintain exclusivity rather than see them be resold in charity shops.
"This practise needs to stop and it needs to stop now.
"No delays, the climate emergency needs to be treated as one."
While there is no Ireland-specific data on the scale of the problem, Boylan used data from France to extrapolate that some €13 million work of hygiene and beauty products are destroyed in Ireland each year.
She called out Amazon specifically which recently opened its first fulfilment centre in Ireland. In the past five years, exposés on the company's dumping practices have been highlighted in Germany, France and the UK.
Amazon say that since launching their donations scheme they have redistributed 100 million items to people in need. Boylan said this is a fraction of what is being dumped.
