Study shows that renewable gas has the potential to replace more than one quarter of our fossil fuel gas
SEAI study shows that renewable gas has the potential to replace more than one quarter of our fossil fuel gas supply
Media release
12th June 2017
New study by SEAI shows gas from animal manure, food waste and grass could provide 28% of Ireland’s gas needs
Renewable gas could cut carbon emissions by as much as 2million tonnes a year, the equivalent of the annual energy used in 360,000 households
Expanding the sector could lead to 3,000 permanent jobs.
Gas derived from renewable sources, such as food waste, unglamorous animal manure and grass, has the potential to replace more than one quarter (28%) of gas supply by 2050 according to a new study by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI). The study, which looks at the availability of renewable gas sources and estimates the costs and benefits of expanding the sector, shows that using renewable gas could also reduce carbon emissions by as much as 2million tonnes a year and create 3,000 permanent jobs.
Commenting on the study Jim Gannon, CEO of SEAI said: “Renewable gas has an important role to play in Ireland’s energy future. Ireland’s aim is to reduce carbon emissions by 80% by 2050. Everyday materials and by-products can be used to create valuable energy sources, and technologies are being developed to increase the potential of renewable gas even more. If further action is taken now to develop this sector then we can derive significant benefits from it in the future.” Gannon continued: “This means we will use less fossil fuel, including natural gas. Renewable gas can help with the decarbonisation of the gas network and could play an important role in Ireland achieving its overall targets.”
Renewable gas is most commonly produced from a process known as Anaerobic Digestion (AD) which turns material like food waste, grass and animal waste into biogas. Biogas can be burnt directly to produce heat and electricity or can be upgraded to a standard suitable for injection into the natural gas grid. The upgraded gas is often referred to as biomethane and is a direct substitute for fossil fuel gas supply. Biogas and biomethane can also be used as a fuel to power adapted trucks, buses and cars. Currently there are only a small number of AD plants in Ireland and an estimated 900 plants, of varying scales could be needed to fully utilise the available resources we have to hand.
A number of government bodies and departments in the areas of agriculture, transport, and environment and energy have a role to play in helping to lower the cost of renewable gas and to maximise the carbon savings available. Actions could include maximising the use of our food and animal waste and increasing biomethane production to inject renewable gas at accessible points on the gas grid. Significant potential exists to utilise surplus grass silage produced on farms, which represents 86% of the renewable gas potential. Grass silage has a production cost that makes the energy produced more expensive. Farming practices that balance cost and emissions will help to improve the overall benefits as we access this resource.
The study was overseen by a steering group comprised of representatives from a range of relevant Government Departments, regulatory bodies and academic experts.
June Bank Holiday Notice
June Bank Holiday Collection & Customer Care Update
As always our collection teams will be out bright and early on Bank Holiday Monday, June 5th. Please present your bins by 6am on Monday to ensure collection.
Our customer care centre is open from 9am-2pm. You can reach them on 1890 98 99 98 or via our contact us page.
Stay tunes to our social channels for more updates.
Eden Estate – Clean Up Day
Saturday May 27th saw the annual Eden Estate – Clean Up Day in Rathfarnham, Dublin 14. The spirits of the volunteers could not be dampened by the miserably weather as they managed to fill 3 skips on the day.
Mr Rackley was delighted with the support Greyhound gave to their endeavours.
The estate managed to tidy over 4 tonnes of material from around the communal areas to keep the area looking spic & span.
If you have an estate clean up coming up please get in touch with us at Marketing@greyhound.ie
Searching for Clondalkin’s Tidiest Estate 2017
Clondalkin Tidy Towns has joined forces with Greyhound Household to track down Clondalkin’s tidiest estate. Up to 45 estates are eligible to enter the competition which will run until June 1st.
The winning estate will receive €500 for spending on common areas, free skips for clean-ups and a winners’ plaque. The estates will be judged on general tidiness, lack of litter and their ability to recycle waste. Greyhound Household will be on hand to lend our industry knowledge to assist with recycling.
CTT Chairperson, said:
“Clondalkin has made great strides in competing in the national tidy towns competition over the past few years. We are continuously moving up the ranks, year on year. Greyhound has been generous sponsors over this period and we are hopeful this competition will help us improve our position even further this year.”
Greyhound Household Managing Director John Brosnan said:
“We know from our dealings with the Clondalkin Tidy Towns Committee, the amount of time and hard work they put into enhancing the area. This is reflected in the progress the town has made in recent years. Many of our colleagues live in the Clondalkin area and we are proud to be associated with this contest. We hope it will give Clondalkin that extra push for this years National Tidy Town’s competition. It will also allow Greyhound to continue to make people more aware of the importance of recycling.”
The competition starts from now. Estates will receive marks for the upkeep of common areas (30%); gardens (20%) house exterior (20%). Extra marks will be given to estates for recycling/segregating waste (30%). For this purpose, some bins in each estate will be randomly monitored over the duration of the competition.
Stay tuned to our social channels to see how the entrants get on.
National Banana Day – Recycling Tips for Your Banana Skins
Bananas are not just a lovely lunchtime snack! The skin which is often just discarded has plenty of other uses!
1. Compost
Probably the most popular – and easiest – use for banana peels is to mix them into the compost pile. Peels add potassium and phosphorus to compost which promote root development and overall plant health when incorporated into garden soil. Just be aware that banana peels are green material and too much of a good thing can offset the balance of your compost.
2. Compost Tea
On a similar note, if you don’t have a compost pile, you can still use banana peels to feed your garden. Simply drop a few peels into a bucket full of water and let it sit for a couple of days to make compost “tea.” Mix one part banana peel compost “tea” with five parts fresh water and feed this mineral-rich mixture to your plants about once per month in lieu of your normal watering. The added potassium and phosphorus will give your plants a boost to keep them growing strong.
3. Feed Your Seedlings
Chop up banana peels and bury one or two small pieces in the soil at the bottom of planting holes or seed-starting containers to give your young plants a boost of nutrients that will aid in root development and disease resistance. Just be sure that your seeds and seedlings aren’t directly touching the ripening peels at time of planting as this may burn and damage roots and seeds.
4. Deter Aphids
Bury a few small pieces of ripe banana peel just under the surface of the soil around garden plants which are prone to aphids. The tiny garden pests don’t like the gases emitted by decomposing peels and will quickly seek more appealing feeding grounds. Be sure to only use a few small pieces as the pungent aroma of whole peels may attract wasps, rodents, and other larger pests in search of a sweet snack.
5. Livestock Feed
Humans are not the only ones who enjoy bananas. Livestock like chickens, rabbits, and pigs will enjoy ground up dried banana peels added to their feed. Just make sure to clean the peels of any wax or pesticides before drying and offering them to pets or livestock.
6. Soothe Skin Irritations
Rub moist banana peels on bug bites, stings, and other skin irritations. The fruit acids, vitamins, and minerals will not only help to soothe away pain and itching. They’re also great for your skin! Banana skin is also a great healer for worts.
7. Improve Your Complexion
Massage a piece of ripe banana peel over your entire face once every few days. The fruit acids and nutrients in the peel can help to exfoliate and nourish your skin, giving it a softer, younger, and healthier appearance.
8. Whiten Teeth
Rub the soft inside of a fresh piece of banana peel on your teeth once per day for two weeks to remove stains and shine them without the use of potentially harmful chemicals.
9.Shine Your Shoes
Just as banana peels are great for your skin, you can also use them to condition and polish your leather shoes. Simply rub the soft inside of a piece of ripe peel over the leather to refresh, clean, and shine! The same fruit acids that make banana peels ideal for rejuvenating skin also make them perfect for polishing silver. Rub the inside of a piece of rip peel over dull and tarnished silver to restore its natural glow.
10.Shine Your Silver
The same fruit acids that make banana peels ideal for rejuvenating skin also make them perfect for polishing silver. Rub the inside of a piece of rip peel over dull and tarnished silver to restore its natural glow.
Ed Sheeran Inspired Food Waste Song
The Global Citizen Initiative is calling on people to join a growing petition to halve food waste by 2030. It feels that the EU can lead the way in driving down food waste and act as an example for the rest of the world.
On a more light hearted note they have themed a song around food waste off of Ed Sheeran’s ‘Shape of You’. Have a listen!
We think it could really catch on so if you want to sing along we have included the words below.
The club isn’t the best place to save the planet,
so the restaurant’s where I go
Me and my friends at the table talking stats
about bout food waste in the world
I saw my dream woman at the bar
throw half of her meal out,
and my jaw hit the floor
She’s perfect in every way,
but if she wastes,
it’s a dealbreaker for sure
Now I’m singing like
Girl, did you know how much
food in the world gets wasted? 1 point 3
Billion tons of food from stores restaurants,
homes, and companies?
boy, boy, you talk too much
1 in 9 people on on earth go hungry
You should take a doggy bag please
You should take a doggy bag please
Mm mm mm!
I don’t love when you waste your food
We make way more than we consume
Starving kids don’t get to choose
When they go to bed hungry
At the grocery in aisle two
I always buy all the ugly fruit
Cuz you know that it still tastes like it’s brand new
And it’s good for your country
Oh I oh I oh I oh I
I don’t love when you waste your food
Oh I oh I oh I oh I
I don’t love when you waste your food
One week in, we let the story begin,
follow you home for our first date
I’ve made you a flow chart
about how you can get smart
about your personal food waste
I talk for hours and hours
about how you have the power
to ignore some expiration dates
And if your fridge is too cold,
then food can grow old
a little faster than you’d like
And i’m singing like
Girl, did you know how much
Food thrown away by restaurants is landfill bound?
Why’d you throw half of your burger out?
boy, boy, you talk too much
1 in 9 people on on earth go hungry
I think you gotta leave
I think you gotta leave
Mm mm mm!
I don’t love when you waste your food
We make way more than we consume
Starving kids don’t get to choose
When they go to bed hungry
Why don’t we call up the EU
Petition them for new policies too
One in four calories don’t get consumed
And no one should go hungry
Be a Good Egg – Recycling at Easter
Be a Good Egg this Easter – Recycle your packaging from your Easter eggs.
Easter Recycling Hints and Tips
Cardboard – Compress/fold cardboard boxes flat and put into your Green bin.
Plastics – Most Easter egg molded plastic is PET – denoted by a triangle with the number 1. This can go in your Green bin too.
Foil – We recommend you scrunch/fold these up and pop the foil in the Green bin.
If you are planning a big Easter lunch, buy loose fruit and vegetables, rather than pre-packaged ones.
Don’t forget to compost/brown bin the fruit and vegetable peelings. If you’ve been gardening over the weekend, add your plant prunings and grass cuttings. The compost will improve the quality of the soil and help plants grow.
Contamination is a big problem in recycling bins so please ensure you are put the right items that are clean into the Green bin.
Put any glass bottles, jars and tins in your local BringBank.
Don’t forget to follow us online and on social media for more updates like this one as well as tips, offers, news and competitions!
Easter Collections Notice 2017
We would like to wish all of our customers a very Happy Easter.
Easter collections will be going ahead as normal on both Good Friday, 14th April and Bank Holiday Monday, 17th April.
Our Bin Collection Bunnies will be out nice and early on both days, so please make sure you have your bins out by 6am so that you are not missed. If you need to contact our customer care team we are on hand from 8am-6pm Fri & 9am-2pm Monday.
The Easter Egg business in Ireland is worth nearly €40 Million a year, with almost 20 Million eggs sold nationwide. (thetaste.ie) That’s a serious amount of chocolate and a lot of empty boxes! Remember to recycle all the Eggs-tra cardboard & plastic in your Green bin. If there is any chocolate going to waste we’ll take it for you in the Brown bin.
Don’t forget to follow us online and on social media for more updates like this one as well as tips, offers, news and competitions!
Food Waste Charter Initiative
A new initiative has been launched to halve the one million tonnes of food waste dumped in Ireland every year.
Minister for the Environment Denis Naughten has signed a Food Waste charter that commits to actions to reduce food waste.
Mr Naughten, who trained as a food scientist, said he is making the issue a priority.
The overall target is to reduce the amount of such waste by 50% by 2030 and supermarkets have undertaken to look at multi-buy offers which are reported to be a factor in discarded food. The Charter aims to provide a collective commitment for people, businesses and communities. This commitment involves implementing at least one food waste prevention action within the first year of signing up, and putting measures in place to carry out future actions by 2020.
The second food waste forum was run by the Environmental Protection Agency who said that one third of the one million tonnes of wasted food comes from householders.
The EPA has estimated that the average family could save between €400 and €1,000 a year by reducing the waste.
However, Greyhound Recycling reports that the usage of brown bins has dropped to just 30% compared to 50% two years ago.
Overall, 40% of black and green bin waste is contaminated to some degree and Greyhound has hired 25 quality control personnel to inspect household bins.
To view the Quality Control Team in action watch our short video and should you have any queries on what can or can’t go in each bin click here for more information.
Get to Know the Green Bin Quality Team
Green Bin Quality Team
Chances are you have seen members of our Green Bin Quality Team doing surveys in your area. They are the early risers in Greyhound Household that reward customers for recycling correctly & point customers, who have incorrect material in their bin, in the right direction.
With the dramatic increase of contamination coming through the Green bins, we have introduced our Green Bin Quality Team. Most recent figures show that contaminated waste in Green bins now accounts for a whopping 40% of the total waste put in Green bins.
When a contaminated bin is discovered, the Green Bin Quality Team will pop a ‘What Goes in The Bin Flyer‘ in the letter box for the customer. After this, if the bin is found to be contaminated again the team will then issue a fine to the customer.
It is not all negative however, the Green Bin Quality Team get to talk to our customers face to face and find a lot of perfect Green bins. We love rewarding customers, so when we spot excellent bins we award our Star Recycler certificate. If you see the team do not be afraid to stop and chat, they are always on hand to assist with your queries on recycling.
See what’s happening on our social sites:
Winner of Schools Art Competition 2017
And the Winner is…
This year we had a huge uptake in entries for our 5th class primary schools art competition. The competition was open to all primary schools in Dublin with the overall winner coming from Holy Child Boys National School, Larkhill.
Brendan, Paul & Iosach from Greyhound Household called out to the school to surprise Shane Kelly, the winner of this years Schools Art Competition. For winning, Shane was presented with a Samsung Tablet in front of his whole class. Greyhound also awarded Ms Feeney, Shane’s teacher, with a tablet to use in class. Educational material was also supplied to the school to assist with education around recycling.
Shane will have bragging rights for years to come too, with his winning picture being superimposed onto one of our new trucks.
It is great to see the passion that the young children have for recycling. The future is looking Green!
Brendan, Marketing Exec, Greyhound Household.
Some Other Fantastic Entries into our Schools Art Competition:
See what’s happening on our social sites:
Greyhound Awarded All Star Award for Customer Communication
All Star Award
For another year, you demonstrated exemplary engagement with your audience. Once again, you set the standard of excellence. We are thrilled to present you with the All Star Award for 2016! We look for customers who get the kind of results that reflect their hard work and stand out from the more than 650,000 organizations internationally who use our services. Every year the competition gets tougher as our best just get better!
Constant Contact
In order to be recognised for the All Star Award you must have:
High average open and click-through rates which is received through engaging content
Low bounce rates which is achieved by using active customer email addresses
Regular communication with your audience/customer base
Here at Greyhound Household we send out thousands of emails & text alerts each day to notify customers of all different things. Service updates, Low Balance Alerts, Newsletters, Surveys etc. We love interacting with customers and hearing back from them. Be sure to keep an eye on your inbox for more upcoming news from Greyhound Household and as ever should you ever need to contact us we are always on hand!
See what’s happening on our social sites:
Stay tunes to our social channels for more updates.
The Easter Egg business in Ireland is worth nearly €40 Million a year, with almost 20 Million eggs sold nationwide. (thetaste.ie) That’s a serious amount of chocolate and a lot of empty boxes! Remember to recycle all the Eggs-tra cardboard & plastic in your Green bin. If there is any chocolate going to waste we’ll take it for you in the Brown bin.
Don’t forget to follow us online and on social media for more updates like this one as well as tips, offers, news and competitions!
When a contaminated bin is discovered, the Green Bin Quality Team will pop a ‘What Goes in The Bin Flyer‘ in the letter box for the customer. After this, if the bin is found to be contaminated again the team will then issue a fine to the customer.
It is not all negative however, the Green Bin Quality Team get to talk to our customers face to face and find a lot of perfect Green bins. We love rewarding customers, so when we spot excellent bins we award our Star Recycler certificate. If you see the team do not be afraid to stop and chat, they are always on hand to assist with your queries on recycling.
See what’s happening on our social sites:
Here at Greyhound Household we send out thousands of emails & text alerts each day to notify customers of all different things. Service updates, Low Balance Alerts, Newsletters, Surveys etc. We love interacting with customers and hearing back from them. Be sure to keep an eye on your inbox for more upcoming news from Greyhound Household and as ever should you ever need to contact us we are always on hand!
See what’s happening on our social sites:
