EPA urges halt to exporting waste

HAZARDOUS waste should be destroyed in incinerators or buried in landfill here instead of being exported abroad, the State environmental watchdog has said.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says Ireland must become more self-sufficient in dealing with hazardous waste and warns large amounts of it will go unreported unless a home-grown solution to the problem is found.

Some 284,000 tonnes of hazardous waste was generated by industry, hospitals and households here in 2006 and half of it, plus 400,000 tonnes of contaminated soil, was exported for disposal abroad. An additional estimated 30,000 tonnes went unreported and illegally dumped — including large quantities of asbestos.