Residents living on about 90 streets in Dublin city will be have to change from using refuse bags to wheelie bins from July 1st.
However, businesses and households on a further 1,000 Dublin streets have been given an exemption from the new rules requiring the use of wheelie bins for at least six months.
The use of bags for household waste was to be originally set to be banned for all but areas designated by local authorities as unsuitable for bins have been exempted.
A Dublin City Council spokeswoman said 18 of the 90 streets would change from bag only to bin, and the rest a mixture of a bin and bag use to bin only.
She said the council was not obliged to publish the streets affected but would put the details on its website in the coming days.
The council has published the full list of the streets that do not need to change from refuse bags to wheelie bins including Grafton Street, Baggot Street Lower, Dame Street, Fitzwilliam Street, Harold's Cross Cottages and Arbour Hill.
The council said streets where it had established that there was not adequate space “within the boundary of the properties” have been designated as suitable for continuing as bag collection areas.
‘Hugely problematic’
Sinn Féin deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald said the proposed scheme should be scrapped because it was “hugely problematic” as people “who live in terraces will have to hike several bins through their homes”.
A Department of Local Government spokesman said the use of bags was not banned under the new regulations. The streets currently exempt from changing to wheelie bins would be reviewed within six months with a view of finding alternatives to the use of refuse bags, he said.
A South Dublin County Council spokeswoman said a 2012 by-law had deemed an appropriate waste container had a lid and was provided by an authorised waste company.
“Therefore the issue of changing from bags to wheelie bins does not arise and there are no homes/street exempt from the use of wheelie bins,” she said.
A Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council spokesman said there would be no changes to the authority’s bagged collection service from July 1st.
The council introduced a pay-by-weight scheme in 2005 and the “residual amount” of customers’ properties considered unsuitable for wheelie bin services would remain the same.
Limerick City and County Council said the legislation would not make a "huge change" to the city as most premises already used bins.
