The Waste Plan for the Dublin Region has been developed jointly by Dublin City Council, Fingal County Council, Dun-Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council and South Dublin County Council and runs over a period of five years from 2005 to 2010.

The objective of the plan is to answer a number of simple questions:

1. Where are we now with our current performance in waste management and what areas can we improve on?

2. What options are available to Dublin and how will these options benefit the Region?

3. What is the future strategy for managing Dublin's waste?

4. What roles will the local authorities and the private sector play in implementing the plan and how will ithis be financed?

5. How will we monitor the progress of the plans implementation?

The plan falls under a waste management hierarchy derived from the EU where prevention and minimisation have the highest priority. Following the waste hierarchy helps protect society and has numerous environment benefits such as consuming less energy, raw materials, water and land.  

The waste hierarchy:

Prevention and minimisation simply means stopping or minimising waste at source before it ever starts. 

Reusing materials and goods instead of throwing them away. 

Recycling where used materials are converted into new products. 

Energy Recovery extracts the energy from the material before disposal.

Disposal where waste is disposed of in a landfill, on or under the ground.