Editorial Policy

1. Our Editorial Mission

Irish municipal recycling is fragmented across 31 local authorities, each running its own civic amenity (CA) sites and bring-bank network alongside private permit-holder kerbside services. Layered on top, Ireland operates six EPR (Extended Producer Responsibility) schemes — Repak for packaging, WEEE Ireland and ERP Ireland for electronics and batteries, ELVES for end-of-life vehicles, Repak ELT for tyres, IFFPG for farm plastics — plus the separate Re-turn Deposit Return Scheme launched 1 February 2024. The result is that even simple household questions — “what bin does this go in?” “where do I bring an old fridge?” “can I get the deposit back on this can?” — have answers that depend on the local authority area, the item, and which scheme is responsible.

Our editorial mission is to publish practical, step-by-step walkthroughs — manually verified against the live local-authority portal and scheme-operator pages — for every Irish local authority and every major waste stream. The reader leaves a page knowing the council’s CA site URL and Eircode, what’s in each kerbside bin under Recycling List Ireland, when seasonal services run, where to take e-waste, batteries, paint, and DRS-eligible bottles and cans.

2. Quality Standards Every Page Meets

• The local authority’s official waste page is verified live, with the council’s CA site portal URL
• The CA site address with Eircode is cross-checked against An Post’s Eircode Finder
• The accepted-materials list is captured from the council’s own page (not a third-party summary)
• Charges, where applicable, are noted from the council’s own published fee list
• Bank-holiday and Christmas-week schedule shifts are listed for the current calendar year
• The bring-bank finder link is the live council finder for that local-authority area
• The kerbside permit-holder list links to the NWCPO national permit register
• The Re-turn locator link points to the official re-turn.ie return-point finder
• WEEE Ireland and ERP Ireland take-back finders are linked from every page
• “Last reviewed” date appears on every page

3. Source Hierarchy — Six Tiers

Full hierarchy with named sources, URLs, and how each is used is on the Sources & Methodology page.

4. Verification — Our Seven-Step Process

1. Identify the right authoritative source. We start with the local authority’s own waste page on its official .ie domain, cross-checked against the LGMA directory and DECC’s local-authority list.
2. Verify the URL is current. Council websites get redesigned. We click through every link before publication and confirm the destination is the actual CA-site / bring-bank / waste-information page.
3. Verify the address with Eircode. Where a CA-site address is listed, we cross-check the Eircode against An Post’s Eircode Finder.
4. Document the accepted-materials list and charges from the actual page. What’s accepted, what’s not, what costs apply — captured from the council’s own list.
5. Cross-check scheme-operator references. Re-turn, WEEE Ireland, ERP Ireland, Repak, ELVES, IFFPG, mywaste.ie — confirmed against each operator’s own current information.
6. Note current procedural details, opening-hours changes, and bank-holiday closures. Captured with a “last reviewed” date and re-verified each quarter.
7. Editor sign-off. A second editor reviews the page end-to-end before it goes live.

5. Update Cycles

6. Corrections Process

1. You report it. Email info@recyclingcentreireland.org with subject “Correction” and the page URL.
2. We acknowledge. Response within seven business days confirms receipt.
3. We verify. An editor goes back to the official source and confirms the current position with a fresh sample lookup.
4. We correct. If confirmed, the page is updated. Substantive corrections — wrong URL, wrong Eircode, wrong CA-site charge, wrong scheme operator — trigger a published correction note dated and described in plain English.
5. We tell you. The reporter is notified once the correction is live.

7. Irish-Language Coverage

8. AI Tools and Authorship

• AI tools may be used for first drafts, summarisation of council pages, formatting consistency, and language polish
• Every local-authority walkthrough is run against the live council portal by a human editor before publication — AI cannot substitute for live verification
• Portal URLs, CA-site Eircodes, accepted-materials lists, charges, bank-holiday shifts, scheme operators, and depot locations are confirmed against the official page by a human
• AI-generated text that turns out to misstate a procedure is corrected through the standard corrections process
• We do not allow AI to invent council-specific procedures, fabricate Eircodes, generate fictional CA-site addresses, or describe scheme operators that do not exist

9. Editorial Independence

We do not take payment from any Irish local authority, DECC, the EPA, the LGMA, the NWCPO, Re-turn, Repak, WEEE Ireland, ERP Ireland, ELVES, IFFPG, mywaste.ie, or any waste-collection company in exchange for editorial coverage. We do not take payment from any commercial waste-management service for being mentioned, recommended, or omitted on a council page. The site is funded by display advertising on the principle that advertising and editorial are separate functions.

10. Advertising and ASAI Standards

• Display advertisements are visually distinct from editorial content and labelled where required
• Where any commercial relationship exists with a service relevant to our audience, it is disclosed in context per the Advertising Standards Authority for Ireland (ASAI) Code of Standards for Advertising and Marketing Communications and the Consumer Protection Act 2007
• Sponsored content, if it ever appears, is clearly identified as paid-for
• We do not insert commercial links above the verified council or scheme-operator portal links on a page; the official source always comes first

ASAI Code: asai.ie.

11. Conflicts of Interest

• The editorial team is not employed by, contracted to, or financially connected to any Irish local authority, scheme operator, or waste-hauling company
• The editorial team is not employed by, contracted to, or financially connected to any commercial EPR-compliance service or producer-side consultancy
• We don’t accept gifts, hospitality, or considerations from these organisations in exchange for coverage

12. Sensitive Topics

Irish waste-collection content intersects with several sensitive areas. We try to handle them fairly:

• Pay-by-weight / pay-by-lift kerbside charging. The transition to incentivised pricing is contested in some communities. We describe what’s actually being implemented and link to both kerbside-collector and consumer-protection perspectives without taking sides.
• Re-turn rollout issues. The DRS launch on 1 February 2024 generated practical problems for some retailers and consumers — machine reliability, cap-attachment compliance, container-label issues. We describe what’s published officially and link to Re-turn’s own customer service.
• Waste-to-energy facilities and landfill siting. Politically contested — Dublin’s Poolbeg, Cork’s Indaver Ringaskiddy, the closing landfills programme. We describe what’s operating and where, without entering siting debates.
• Illegal dumping and rural fly-tipping. A serious problem in some rural areas. We point to the National Environmental Complaints Line and the local-authority litter-warden service without being prescriptive about local enforcement priorities.
• Travellers and Roma communities and waste service provision. Some halting sites and traveller accommodations have specific waste-service arrangements. We describe what the council publishes and direct readers to the council’s housing-and-environment liaison.
• Apartment and multi-residential complexes. Bin-store provision in apartment complexes can be contested between residents and management companies. We describe what’s required under Multi-Unit Developments Act 2011 obligations and link to the relevant management-company guidance.

13. Reader Feedback

Substantive feedback — corrections, suggestions, broken-link reports — is logged and addressed within seven business days. Residents, building managers, council staff, sustainability consultants, and journalists who use these portals daily often spot inconsistencies before our quarterly review catches them. Feedback that is abusive, threatening, or harassing is not engaged with and may be reported under our Terms of Service.

14. Language, Tone, and Accessibility

• Pages are written in plain Hiberno-English at a level intended to be accessible to a general adult audience
• Acronyms are spelled out on first use (CA, EPR, MRF, HHW, IC&I, DECC, EPA, LGMA, NWCPO, WEEE, DRS, ELV, IFFPG, ASAI, DPC)
• Irish-language council portals are linked where they exist
• We follow our Accessibility Statement, including WCAG 2.1 AA targets and alignment with the European Accessibility Act 2025 and the National Disability Authority’s IT Accessibility Guidelines