Welcome to St. Rynagh's N.S. Banagher, Co. Offaly

The Green School Committee

Green Schools Committee Trip
to
Tullamore Recycling Facilities

Early on Tues. 22nd Nov. eighteen members of St. Rynagh's Green Schools Committee set out for Tullamore. At ten o'clock we arrived at Derryclure Landfill Site on the Portlaoise Road out of Tullamore. This is a place where in recent years materials which were not recyclable were buried in the ground and covered over with soil. The gigantic embankments of earth which dominate the site tell us how much we "dumped" and how little we recycled in previous years. Now this has all changed. The landfill site has been filled over for the last time and a new state of the art recycling facility is available to the public. Here we met the manager Michael Geraghty who gave us a conducted tour of the site. He was very good and in the end we could hardly think of anything that could not be recycled there.

After our visit to Derryclure we went to the A.E.S. (Advanced Environmental Solutions) just outside Tullamore. There is a great difference between A.E.S. and the Offaly County Council's facilities at Derryclure. In Derryclure individuals bring their recycling in car boots or in trailers. At A.E.S. huge trucks and vans bring in enormous quantities of glass, paper, cans, compost, cardboard and plastic. Here the material is thoroughly sorted and compressed into bales. The cardboard is sent to China and the glass goes to County Cavan. Whatever cannot be recycled goes to a landfill site in County Kildare.

During our visit we were well looked after, everybody wearing high-viz vests and hard helmets. Thanks to all at A.E.S. and at Derryclure for a wonderfully informative trip.