From men’s sheds to bug hotels

A NEW MATERIAL ‘BANK’ SCHEME IS TO BE PILOTED FOR GROUPS TO CREATE BUG HOTELS COUNTYWIDE

A question was asked at this month’s meeting of Enniscorthy Municipal District Council as to whether or not all men’s sheds across the county are aware of a scheme to develop bug hotels across Co Wexford.

In her report to the members Senior Executive Planner, Deirdre Kearns, highlighted a number of initiatives that are taking place at present or planned.

She said that work with a number of men’s sheds had resulted in a new bug hotel being installed in Bridgetown with a second, smaller one being installed in County Hall.

The new facilities are in addition to ones already in place in Enniscorthy, Rosslare Harbour and Kilmuckridge.

‘ Two new hotels are to be installed in Rosslare Strand in the next few weeks,’ said Ms Kearns in her report.

‘With the help of men’s sheds across the county this project is ongoing with many more installations hoped [for] in the coming months.’

Cllr Barbara-Anne Murphy asked what framework is used when it comes to developing the bug hotels and she also asked if ‘all of the men’s sheds know’.

Ms Kearns said that work had begun on developing a materials bank for bug hotels.

‘A pilot materials bank is going to be set up in Holmestown recycling centre in collaboration with C&D Providers,’ said Ms Kearns.

The members were told the aim of the initiative will be to roll out material banks to other recycling centres in the county.

‘ This is the first one that is being trialled,’ said Ms Kearns.

‘ They have a skip that will be moved to Holmestown but we want to see how successful it will be and how many hotels we can encourage people to build,’ she added.

‘We will not know how much supplies we will get [but] we could rotate it.’

With regard to Cllr Murphy’s question Ms Kearns said: ‘It’s just a trial but it will be rolled out.’

Through the pilot scheme C&D Providers have agreed to fill a small skip with broken material that could be used to build a bug hotel.

‘ This will reduce the amount of waste they currently send to landfill,’ said Ms Kearns.

Through the local authority’s Wex Bee Aware initiative the material bank scheme will be promoted and people will be encouraged to use recycled material that is available to make bug and bee hotels.

Ms Kearns said it’s expected the scheme will be fully operational by January.