Dr. Joanne Rourke
Resource Efficiency Officer, Regional Waste Management Planning
Offices
Effective waste management helps build a circular economy. However, knowing which bin to use or where to recycle an unusual material can be confusing. Thankfully, one website offers an all-in-one resource.
The MyWaste website, Ireland’s official guide to waste, provides a range of useful and accessible information, toolkits and resources to help households and businesses to reuse, recycle and segregate waste easily and confidently.
MyWaste — your guide to waste
In addition, the site’s excellent A to Z search function offers information on where and how to recycle hundreds of materials.
The link between recycling and segregating waste on one hand and climate action on the other isn’t always obvious, but it’s very real. Recycling provides valuable resources, reducing the need to use virgin materials and lowering energy usage. It’s the climate action we can all take many times each day.
Food waste
For example, the food placed in your brown bin will, within weeks, become either rich compost for growing fresh local vegetables or be used to create green energy. This is the circular economy in action.
The National Food Waste Recycling Week campaign, run annually by MyWaste.ie, aims to encourage brown bin usage and improve overall understanding of how to separate food waste. MyWaste provides bin stickers, animations and video information to help households make the most of their brown bins. The 2026 campaign will run from May 30th to June 7th.
Recycling provides valuable resources, reducing the need to use virgin materials and lowering energy usage.
Recycling in the workplace
For businesses and workplaces, ensuring that staff members and clients segregate waste properly can be a difficult and frustrating task. MyWaste takes the hassle out of this task by providing a Commercial Waste Toolkit, which aims to inform, engage and enable workforces.
The CWT is free to businesses and includes a suite of posters, bin labels, guidance animations suitable for staff induction or as timely reminders, online training modules, and case studies. It is suitable for a range of businesses including retail, hospitality, leisure and administration.
DIY and reuse
Household renovation and DIY often result in needless waste. Much of the discarded material is still perfectly fine and could be reused. MyWaste urges households to “Think before you Skip it”, prioritising reuse and repurposing where possible. To help with this, MyWaste offers a bank of resources, such as practical step-by-step guides and videos to help homeowners be more circular when clearing out and renovating their homes.
Check out the MyWaste toolkit for materials you can use during National Food Waste Recycling Week here: https://mywaste.ie/resources-and-campaigns/food-waste-recycling/spread-the-food-waste-knowledge/.
Businesses can use the Commercial Waste Toolkit here: https://mywaste.ie/dispose-waste/in-your-workplace/.
