Waste issue reaching crisis point
The warning has come from PJ Rudden, one of the country’s leading waste management consultants who claims our waste policy is in crisis and is costing the economy. At the same time, opposition to burning waste continues and the heated debate about incineration rages.
Levels of household recycling in Ireland have increased dramatically since the late 1990s, but we are still well below the averages of other European countries. Recycling practices vary across the country and, in the absence of incineration, any waste not recycled has to go to landfill – at least that is what is supposed to happen.
There is, of course, large-scale illegal dumping taking place, as well as so-called ‘backyard burning’ of waste. And, while competition in the area of waste collection between local authorities and private collectors was never as keen, a huge amount of waste is unaccounted for.
In Kerry, for instance, it is reckoned by the county council that up to 20% of householders are not availing of collection services, which begs the obvious question: where is their waste going?
Nationally, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) reported in 2007 that almost 90% of Irish households recycled some of their household waste, compared to just 48% in 1999. The figure was highest for residents in Dublin at 94%. Progress has undoubtedly been made in recycling – we have exceeded EU targets in relation to the recycling of packaging and used electrical goods, for instance, but there is still a long way to go to meet overall EU targets.
What to do with waste that is not, or cannot be recycled, is a key issue, with incineration, in one form or another, being the obvious solution in many people’s eyes. It’s a long-running debate that seems to have no end.
Mr Rudden, environment and energy director with RPS group and vice-president of Engineers Ireland, says our current waste plan had been working well until the commissioning of the international review caused the plan to stop and prevent inward investment in infrastructure, pending the review’s conclusions.
“This is now delaying the implementation of infrastructure that was previously approved as government policy to deal with Ireland’s waste,” he says.
The County and City Managers Association predicts the new policy proposed by the international review could cost the Irish economy an additional €2 billion to develop, on top of the investments already made in implementing infrastructure – including incineration – as part of Government waste policy since 1998.
Writing in Construction and Property News, meanwhile, Mr Rudden points out that the ESRI, among others, rejected the international review commissioned by the Department of the Environment, calling it “fundamentally flawed”.
“A report commissioned to create certainty in the Irish waste market has resulted in even more uncertainty and will unnecessarily cost taxpayers up to billions of euro. MBT (mechanical biodegradable treatment) costs more than incineration and does a lesser job, environmentally,” he says.
Mr Rudden also warns that the EU Landfill Directive, the most urgent waste issue facing us, is going to cost more money. Unless we divert 23% of biodegradable waste from landfill by 2010, and increase diversion to 64% by 2016, we could face fines of hundreds of millions of euro.
He says only the Poolbeg waste-to-energy plant, which began construction last December, will allow the Dublin region to meet the landfill directive targets.
In addition, at today’s prices, the energy generated from the Poolbeg plant will be worth some €30 million annually and the share of this money accruing to the four Dublin local authorities will be fed back into providing local government services.
Incinerators have been operating for many years in several other EU capitals, often in city centres and built-up areas. According to Mr Rudden, Stockholm, currently EU Green Capital City for 2010, and Hamburg, European Green Capital 2011, are all very proud of their low landfill rates, due to a combination of high recycling and incineration with district heating.
“This is exactly what the current Dublin Waste Plan, in place since 1998, envisages for the city. The size of incinerator in Stockholm is identical, pro rata, to the size of the incinerator currently under construction in Poolbeg.”
Around 735,000 tonnes of waste generated in Dublin in 2008, was disposed of in landfills in the region and around the country. That figure was a drop on previous years, due partly to the effects of the recession. There are also several hundred thousand tonnes of additional waste close to the Dublin region that need to be diverted from landfill.
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