40% rise in amount of landfill waste

DAMMING figures reveal Ireland landfills 40% more waste than it did eight years ago, making the country twice as reliant on landfill than the rest of Europe.

Labour Party president Proinsias De Rossa said the figures were proof of the Government’s failure to properly address Ireland’s waste management crisis.

“The Government’s recycling strategy lies in tatters,” said the Labour MEP.

“As the EU figures show, the Government landfills 40% more per person than in 1995 and twice the European average.”

The figures are contained in a report released yesterday by the European Commission in advance of next week’s European Summit.

The report reveals the amount of waste landfilled by the Government has risen from 398kg per person in 1995 to 554kg per person in 2000 By contrast, the use of landfill has been falling throughout the rest of

Europe and for the same time period was reduced by 4% to an average of just 292kg per person.

“The Government has made great play over recent years about its efforts to encourage recycling but the fact remains that we are landfilling almost twice as much as we were seven years ago,” Mr De Rossa said.

“It is clear that Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats have failed to implement the radical anti-waste

policies set out by the Rainbow Coalition and Brendan Howlin’s 1996 Waste Management Act.”

A spokesman for Environment Minister Martin Cullen said the Government had worked hard to improve the landfill situation since 2000.

“The Department would accept that up to 2000 there was a reliance on landfill but since then there have been several major initiatives to reduce our landfill levels,” he said.

The spokesman said the Government’s regional waste management plans had been in place since September 2001 and the infrastructure to meet the plans’ targets was being rolled out.

However, Mr De Rossa pointed to the substantial number of illegal landfills discovered in the last two years.

“It’s quite clear that it hasn’t become any better. If you count in the amount of illegal landfills that have been discovered in recent years its quite clear the situation is getting worse, not better,” he said.

The Green Party last night added to the criticism of the Government’s waste management strategy, saying recent moves to implement recycling strategies were token gestures.

“Recycling seems to be regarded as nothing more than a form of token measure by successive Governments,” said environment spokesperson Mary White.

“What we need is not more landfill or increased incineration but consumer-friendly and tangible recycling facilities in every town and village throughout the country,” Cllr White added.