Municipal solid waste management in Ireland: assessing for sustainability

The generation of waste in Ireland has increased greatly since the raid 1990's in line with a period of extremely rapid economic growth. While waste management policy subscribes to a notion of sustainability, it is not altogether clear if it is being achieved in practice. To assess for sustainability international trends suggest that the setting of objectives and the measurement of progress towards them might be determined through the use of indicators. Accordingly the central thrust of this article is to assemble a small set of indicators and examine how they might be used in an Irish context to determine progress towards sustainable waste management.

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