Farmers who have bushes to burn can do so from 1 September.

In January, the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications signed regulations to provide an extension which allows agricultural green waste to be burned on farms in certain limited circumstances.

The Department said the extension was “a final three-month period from 1 September 2023 to 30 November 2023 to allow the agricultural sector to deal with waste accumulated in the interim”.

Coppicing

Some farmers may have chosen coppicing as a measure under ACRES, for example, which involves cutting back hedgerows to allow them to rejuvenate and a lot of waste is created with this practice.

“The decision to extend this exemption for one final time arose from the recommendations made in a recent study, commissioned by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, to examine alternative measures to the burning of agricultural green waste within the Irish context, and assess the practicality of such alternatives,” the Department said.

“This study, which was prepared by the Irish Bioenergy Association (IrBEA), notes that there are a number of feasible alternatives available to sustainably manage this waste material.”