Cork County Council have issued a statement advising the public that they are unable to take any timber or wood at the local authority’s civic amenity sites for the time being.

The council say this is due to a recent ‘contraction in the disposal market’ nationally, where many waste timber outlets have been under pressure to dispose of timber and wood. Apologising for the inconvenience, the council said they would resume normal operations ‘as soon as this issue is resolved’.

The claim was made at a council meeting on Monday this week that the Environmental Protection Agency were behind a directive ‘banning civic amenity sites from taking waste-wood cuttings from carpenters, construction workers, etc’, however, this allegation was dismissed by Cork County Council who said they were ‘unaware’ of such an instruction. No reference to such a directive can be found in EPA guidelines online.

‘Cork County Council is not aware of any direction from the EPA regarding timber off-cuts from carpenters and construction workers’ replied Ger Barry, of the council’s Planning and Environment Department.

‘However, there is currently a restriction in the timber recycling market nationally and in the United Kingdom, and we are unable to accept timber waste at our civic amenity sites from all sources until this issue is
resolved’.

‘Our contractor has been endeavoring to find other outlets for the waste timber abroad but with no success to date. As soon as the market conditions allow, Cork County Council will resume the acceptance of timber at the civic amenity sites’.