Library of Community Stories
Community Stories Library
Achursáil Árainn – Aran Recycling
A community member owned co-operative of the Aran Islands. The key to the project was the islanders deciding they no longer wanted to dump household and commercial waste to landfill on the island. This affected the quality of the public water supply. A more sustainable view was needed: based on maximum recycling and minimum landfill. This was achieved and almost 60% of all waste on the island is recylced or repurposed – way ahead of the national targets.
Sligo Sustainable Energy CommunitySligo
Sligo’s community and the town’s largest businesses and employers are working together to reduce energy use and carbon emissions across Sligo and Leitrim. This group, called Sligo Sustainable Energy Community (SEC), was set up in 2016 by local organisations and community members. They are helping people and businesses to save energy, cut costs, and switch to cleaner energy sources.
Aran Islands Keep Cup Campaign
The Aran Islands ‘Keep Cup Campaign’ was launched in June 2025 by the Aran Islands Energy Co-op (Comharchumann Fuinnimh Oileáin Árann Teo, CFOAT), in collaboration with thirteen local businesses across the three Islands. Ten businesses on Inis Mór, one business on Inis Meáin and two on Inis Óirr have partnered up with CFOAT to promote the increase of reusable utensils and to reduce the number of single use plastic items in the form of takeaway cups.
Aran Islands’ Energy Co-operative (Case Study)
We are a community owned energy cooperative representing the 3 Aran Islands. Lifetime membership is open to everyone who lives on the Islands for a fee of just €100. The cooperative is non-profit with all of the benefits going back into the community. The co-op shows how ordinary citizens can have big impacts on their community – but set things up right on a firm base.
We didn’t really need that second car
The benefits are both immediate, sustainable and you send a clear signal of sustainability, environmental consideration and an active lifestyle to your kids. They will then, hopefully, be more likely and more comfortable making these types of decisions into the future – which they will very likely be forced to do anyway in the coming years to mitigate climate change.
Cíara and Keep Cup Campaigns
The impact of my action has been a reduction in my carbon footprint and control on the amount of single-use waste that I produce. For example, if I go out to work 5 days a week for 48 weeks of the year, buy a takeaway coffee, a plastic bottle of water and dispose of them in a public landfill bin each day of my commute, I will have disposed of 240 single use coffee cups and 240 single use plastic water bottles in landfill. By making an effort to carry reusable utensils, that number can be zero!
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