Planning sought for hazardous ash unit
Murphy Environmental Hollywood Ltd (MEHL) are seeking planning to develop a unit for the long-term burial of post-incinerator ash and other types of non-biodegradable waste.
The company want to bury the waste in their existing inert landfill at Hollywood, the Naul.
It is intended that the unit will take waste from the Indaver waste-to-energy plant being built in Co Meath and the planned Dublin City Council facility at Poolbeg. If the Indaver incinerator at Ringaskiddy in Cork is given the green light by An Bord Pleanála next month, it too will be sending its ash to the planned Co Dublin site.
According to Murphy Environmental, this facility will take up to 500,000 tonnes of incinerator and other forms of non-biodegradable ash per year.
MEHL general manager Patricia Rooney said Irish companies are wasting vast sums of money sending hazardous and ash waste abroad and that this facility would help make Irish companies more competitive.
“This country has no suitably operated, future-proofed facility to treat hazardous and ash waste. This infrastructure deficit is forcing companies operating here to export their hazardous waste abroad. Not only is this resulting in considerable expense, it also runs contrary to EU waste management directives which demand that each member state must provide for its own waste solutions within its own boundaries,” Ms Rooney said.
MEHL say the project is “in line with policies set out in the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Hazardous Waste Management Plan and the Government’s National Development Plan”.
The unit will take 12 months to develop. MEHL has requested a pre-application consultation with An Bord Pleanála to determine whether the application can be considered strategic infrastructure and therefore qualify for direct planning consideration by An Bord Pleanála. An application for a waste licence to accompany the necessary planning consents will be made to the EPA in the coming months.
