Dublin should go ‘bigger and bolder’ with initiatives to reach climate targets and set up swap centres all over the city.

That’s the call from independent Ballyfermot councillor Vincent Jackson who says valuable items that could be of use to some are being wrongly disposed of.

Swap centres are commonplace in neighbourhoods across Denmark, other Nordic countries, and Canada, where they have been successful in reducing needless waste.

On Newstalk Breakfast, Cllr Jackson said he’s seen such facilities in operation and believes it could work in Dublin.

“I’ve seen it in operation in Canada, you can go to the facility, some of them are open 24 hours a day, you pay a small amount, a fiver or tenner, and you can actually take what you think you need,” he said.

“You can also bring back what you don’t need.

“It reduces the amount of stuff going to incineration, going to landfill, it really is the circular economy and you’re using what someone else doesn’t want.”

Cardboard in a waste collection centre, 4-9-08. Image: BSIP SA / Alamy

The independent councillor said it might have some “teething issues” at first, but nothing that can’t be worked through.

“If you look at bottle banks, clothes banks, at the beginning some people used them as an excuse to get rid of domestic waste and everything else,” he said.

“After a short amount of time, that worked its way through the system and people realised the futility of it because you risk losing that facility in your area.

“We have to start somewhere when you look at the number of things people throw out that could be used by someone else.”

'Stuff that costs a fortune'

Cllr Jackson said people have become very creative in reusing unwanted items.

“If you go to any local men’s shed group around the city, around the county, and look how creative they are with your traditional pallet,” he said.

“They turn them into benches, they turn them into tables, they turn them into bird boxes, and this is stuff that has previously gone for incineration.

“If you go buy a skip anywhere in the city and look at all the waste management providers, there are thousands of skips on a daily basis.

“They have the best of doors in them, plywood, stuff that costs a fortune now if you go to providers.”

A front loader moves rubbish in the tipping area of a New York curbside recycling program in the US in January 2015. Picture by: Richard B. Levine/SIPA USA/PA Images

The Ballyfermot councillor said something needs to change.

“I think if we are really sincere about meeting the targets that we have to for renewable energy, renewable waste, for the circular economy, we have to be bigger and bolder than we have in the past,” he said.

“The way we’ve done things in the past is not going to deliver those targets.”

Main image: Rubbish at a landfill. Image: inga spence / Alamy Stock Photo