Tipperary waste management honour as Cashel wins silver medal

At the annual LAMA All Ireland Community & Council Awards 2019, VOICE project ‘Towards Zero Waste Cashel’ walked away with a silver award in the Best Waste Management category.

There were over 150 entrants to the awards with 100 projects represented on the night.

Project Coordinator Mindy O’Brien and Project Manager Derry O’Donnell were on hand in Dublin to receive the award along with representatives from Tipperary County Council.

“ We’re delighted that the project has received recognition on a national scale. This brings attention to Zero Waste and we hope other communities can take inspiration from some of what we’ve achieved. It’s great to be here with representatives from Tipperary County Council who provided great support for the initiative” Project Manager Derry O’Donnell

The awards sponsored by IPB insurance and Local Authority Members Association celebrate community and councils working together. Zero Waste Cashel, Ireland’s first zero waste town, with support from Tipperary County Council, the EPA and the Southern Region Waste Management Office, brought together local community groups such as Tidy Towns, the Lions Club, the Scouts and local schools and businesses in a project that led on waste reduction.

The project was started in 2017, thanks to a Green Enterprise grant from the Environmental Protection Agency, and ran until July 2018 with the aim of reducing waste in Cashel by 25% through a suite of measures including education on waste reduction, and running workshops on repair, reuse, upcycling, home made products, composting and Stop Food Waste workshops. We also received huge support from the Southern Region Waste Management Office, which financed the waste characterisation report and Reuse Month activities. Tipperary County Council provided great support for the project such as the Reuse Month Stop Food Waste Cooking Demo in aid of Cashel Playground Development Group, the installation of on-street recycling bins and the Zero Waste Festival. Two local councillors Martin Browne and Roger Kennedy also sat on the steering committee for the project.

“We had huge buy-in from the local groups, businesses and individuals who wanted to start their zero waste journey. We hope the lessons we learned and the experience we had will translate to develop other zero waste initiatives across the country,” stated Coordinator, Mindy O’Brien.

Over the course of the project residents in Cashel embarked upon a journey to leave behind unsustainable consumption and waste creation and head towards wise resource use.

Successes over the year of the project included installing Ireland's first on street recycling bins, hosting a zero waste festival in the town,  and creating an online map of the initiatives in Cashel featuring shops using paper bags over plastic, offering reusable packaging, businesses offering repairs or upcycling among many other.

VOICE is building on the experiences of the Zero Waste Cashel to roll out its new Conscious Communities Campaign which aims to bring the lessons learned at Cashel across the country.