With single use plastics continue to grab headlines, it would have been easy to miss new measures that were quietly introduced to support wider reuse and recycling, going to the very heart of the Circular Economy concept.

The idea of reuse is to go beyond a single use for everything we own, extending the life of that item through passing it on, lending it, repairing it, upcycling it, or repurposing it. The Community Reuse Network (CRN) estimates that we currently reuse less than 5% of our municipal waste in Ireland.

The revised Waste Framework Directive text, approved here last week by the Council of EU Member States, introduced measures that will go well beyond a ban on a specific plastic items, by bringing in obligations to measure and eventually set targets for all types of reuse. For further information please see our press release here and the RREUSE network reaction here.

  • June 12, 2018

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Our funders

EPA Circular Economy Programme

CRNI supports its members and works to mainstream reuse thanks to core funding provided by the EPA under the Circular Economy Programme.

For more information about the programme see here.

Project Funding

ReMark Quality Mark

CRNI received funding from the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications through the Circular Economy Innovation Grant Scheme to carry our the next phase of the ReMark project. 

For more information about the project see here.

Circular Textiles

CRNI is leading an EPA Green Enterprise project Circular Textiles, which will test the impact of three different separate collection systems for textiles and explore how we could manage the additional quantity of textiles that are collected. This project will be concluded in 2022.

For more information about the project see here.