Big Laois wheelie bin firm workers to meet in Portlaoise over proposed sale as union slams bin charge hike

Workers at one of the biggest wheelie bin services in Laois are set to meet in Portlaoise to decide how to respond to the proposed sale of the company out of public ownership into the private sector.

The SIPTU trade union confirmed the calling of a meeting of Bord na Móna workers as it raised concerns of big hikes in domestic waste collection prices by one of the big private operators. 

SIPTU said a general meeting its members employed in Bord na Móna Recycling will be held in Portlaoise next week to discuss their response to plans to sell the service to a Kerry-based company.

SIPTU's Transport, Energy, Aviation and Construction Divisional Organiser is Adrian Kane.

“The decision by the management of Bord na Móna to sell our last publicly owned domestic waste collection service flies in the face of the recent recommendations contained concerning the sector put forward by the Dublin City Taskforce and the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action.

"Bord na Móna Recycling should not be sold off but rather developed as the motor of a new public domestic waste collection service. This is what makes sense, it is what people want and it is the environmentally sound way to proceed,” he said.

SIPTU also said reported price hikes being planned by domestic waste collection companies are indicative of a lack of regulatory control by the State and make the calls for the return of services to public control all the more urgent.

“The announcement of major price hikes by domestic waste collection companies starkly shows why the proposed privatisation of Bord na Móna Recycling, the last publicly managed service in the country, must be halted. The number of service providers in the domestic waste collection sector has collapsed in recent years. If Bord na Móna Recycling is privatised, it will merely accelerate the inevitable monopolisation of the market by a very small number of private providers.

“This will leave consumers at the mercy of profiteering private businesses and lead to the further erosion of workers’ rights in the sector. Ireland’s unique model of side-by-side competition also has severe adverse environmental impacts, it leads to widespread illegal dumping and currently leaves almost a quarter of all households with no domestic waste collection service at all,” he said. MORE BELOW PICTURE.

The statement was issued after the Irish Independent reported that Panda Recycling is rise prices above the rate of inflation. 

Panda has told its 300,000 customers in north Dublin it will increase the half-yearly service charge, the general waste per-lift charge, and the recycling per-lift charge from next Saturday. It's expected that similar price rises for Panda customers are likely in Cork, Galway, Meath, Wicklow, Wexford.

Bord na Móna is one of three rubbish collection services in Laois. Ray Whelan Waste Management has been operational in Laois for several years while Mr Binman entered the Laois market in 2024.

It emerged in late 2024 that KWD Recycling, a Kerry-based waste company, was understood to be the preferred bidder to buy Bord na Móna Recycling. Bord na Móna is reportedly in line to sell for €55 million. That would mean a multi-million loss to the taxpayer as Bord na Móna paid €61 million for the waste management company, formerly known as Advanced Environmental Solutions (Ireland), in 2007.

While Bord na Móna is selling its waste business it has planning permission to build a huge bio-gas production company outside Portlaoise. The firm also wishes to produce fertiliser from the organic household and commercial waste at a bio-digestor off the Mountrath Road.

It would take in 80,000 tonnes of food waste per year. The site for the new plant is at the Coolnamona boglands, Togher just off the Junction 18 interchange on the M7 motorway.

AES proposed a similar scheme in Kyletalesha near Portlaoise before Bord na Móna took over.