Civil society

1
Civil society the politics of waste management
in Ireland

• Dr. Anna Davies
• Department of Geography
• School of Natural Sciences
• Trinity College, Dublin
• E-mail daviesa_at_tcd.ie

2
Acknowledgements

• Royal Irish Academy Third Sector Research
  Programme
• Research Assistance Dimitrios Paraskevas
• Interviewees

3
Irelands Waste Landscape

• Crisis
• Scarcity of landfill low recycling illegal
  disposal
• Non-compliance
• EU Landfill Directive
• Change
• 1996 Waste Management Act ( Amendments)

4
Restructuring waste governance

• Public sector
• Waste management planning
• Private sector
• Increasing participation service provision
• Individuals
• Mass media awareness campaigns
• Civil society?

5
Demonstrated value of civil society actions for
waste management

• Environmental
• Reduction re-use recycling legislative
  development
• Social
• Awareness raising community empowerment
  participation recycled resources
• Economic
• Skills training employment
• See for example http//www.cylch.org

6
Waste related civil society in Ireland missing
or marginalised?

• Community based recycling organisations
• E.g. Sunflower Recycling
• Anti-incineration groups
• E.g. No Incineration Alliance
• Anti-bin tax coalitions
• E.g. Dublin anti-bin tax campaign

7
CBROs Sunflower Recycling

• Some other projects had the attitude we will
  work with you but we will not empower you. The
  philosophy of Sunflower Recycling is that
  providing training alone is not enough, and
  people have to be let make their own decisions.
  Community development through community
  empowerment is the best way forward.
• It is an enterprise achieving sustainable
  development as it has an economic, a social and
  an environmental role. It is a community
  business. The only differences with any other
  businesses are that the training of the staff
  gets subsidised by the State, and that all profit
  is being put back into the development of the
  organisation.

8
Problems

• The Department for the Environment would not
  give us the moneythey told us wed come to the
  wrong placethey did not see it as part of their
  role. We could get funding from the Dept of
  Community Affairs, as other community projects
  do, but this would be wrong. Community developers
  see recycling as part of waste management and
  thats the local authoritys job, and local
  authorities do not see it as their responsibility
  to provide jobs for long-term unemployed people.
  The solution is to create a specific programme
  for community recycling funded by the plastic
  bags tax.
• If I was to start this now I would not get FÁS
  money. And without that money we would not have
  been here in the first place. We are getting
  funded because we are already on the scheme.
  There is no more money being put into itthere
  isnt anybody pushing for it. There is not a
  community recycling network in Ireland and
  community groups do not seem to realise
  recyclings potential as a viable alternative to
  other jobs
• The government would rather build a recycling
  site than fund a community project because in the
  short term it would cost them half as much, but
  the social benefits and the awareness raising are
  not quantified.
• Theres a terrible mistrust of the community
  sector. They do not see us as professional but
  rather as do-gooders

9
Anti-Incineration Networks NIA

• what we try to do is not only oppose
  incineration, but support the alternatives. I
  think thats the key herewhat were saying as a
  collective body is not in anyones backyard.
• were the democratic side of itWere not a
  lunatic fringe, were reasonably opposed to
  incineration, but were there to be convinced at
  the same time. Were a challenge to them to
  prove that their box of tricks is 100 safe.
• were now in the position where were
  challenging an EPA draft licence and were
  involved in a high court challenge, now going to
  the supreme court. So thats taking up most of
  our time and again theres no funding and no
  equality of funding.

10
Problems

• Its stacked against you. The recent
  introduction of fees for submissions,
  observations and objections either to the
  council, the board or the EPA is just another
  indication of the lack of democracy. Now you can
  only really object if you have the money and
  thats wrongwere fighting organisations with
  bottomless pockets of money
• Theres no real way for you and I as ordinary
  citizens to really get involved.I dont know how
  many proposals our groups and other groups have
  sent into various ministries of the environment
  and nothing has happened.
• I think what were lacking is a national
  environmental movement, a strong body like a good
  Greenpeace or a good Friends of the Earth thats
  well fundedwere quite strong with regards
  incineration but its purely based on localised
  issues thats why theres pockets all over the
  place.
• Ireland has never had a culture of
  environmentalism, its seen as very middle class.
  Theres people involved in religious
  organisations and sporting organisations, but
  whove never had an environmental lobby or people
  who are interested in that kind of thing.

11
Anti-bin tax coalitions Dublin

• The main strategy of the campaign was to put up
  the membership, get people involved in the
  campaignthere were many blockades and the bin
  men supported us wellthe idea would be to create
  a crisis and put the issue on the agenda.
• The Secretary of the Congress of Trade Unions
  said we shouldnt be on the streets, that its
  not the way to challenge the whole concept, but
  yet he wasnt offering any alternativesWhat the
  campaign was doing was trying to pull all those
  elements together and play a collective role.
• We want to see a clean and fair societywe do
  clean-ups in our own area and we work on the
  council we organise a whole day, theres one
  coming up and well go round the whole estate and
  clean up everything.
• So many issues over a bin tax, this just
  brought it to a fronteverybody was talking about
  everything in politics. People became very
  politically aware.

12
Problems

• There should be some way for people to be able
  to voice their opinion and express how they feel.
  I dont want to cause trouble. I want to be able
  to discuss it and come up with a reasonable
  resultit was a terrible thing to do, put someone
  in jail for trying to change policies that are
  unjust especially when there is such corruption
  in the entire system.
• The City of Possibilitiesthe whole idea behind
  that is a city of dialogue, discussion, debate, a
  city of participation, consultationyeah
  rightnone of those principles are followed in
  thisnever once did they talk to us, have a
  dialogue with us, explain their proposals to us,
  their ideas
• Right or wrong at least this way it would get
  media attention and have somebody sit down and
  make up their own mind about what was going
  onwhy did the government want 16 policemen
  looking at me? They obviously wanted to
  intimidate us and show to other people that they
  cannot go out and make a difference.

13
Civil society waste management

• BUT

• Agents of change
• Proactive reactive
• Policy practice
• Watchdogs
• Monitoring evaluation
• Conduits
• Communication, information education

14
Current conditions for civil society

• Constraint
• Resources
• Status
• Access
• Isolation
• Leading to

• Confrontation
• Media
• Political arenas
• Communities
• Conflict
• Courts
• Civil disobedience

15
A wasted opportunity?

• Evidence that civil society waste
  actors/organisations are
• Innovative
• Community champions
• Catalysts
• Evidence that civil society waste
  actors/organisations could
• Contribute to sustainable management of waste
• Build or extend social capacity in communities
• Encourage greater accountability transparency
• Facilitate better dialogue between state society

16
Future developments?

• Need for greater recognition
• Funding
• Inclusion influence in policy community
• How?
• Scaling-up voices
• National networking organisation
• Building constituencies partnerships
• Links with other civil society organisations
• Learning from other initiatives
• ZWNZ - New Zealand, Clych - Wales, RRFB - Nova
  Scotia, GRRN - USA