Waste crisis in mid-west as landfill site closes

THE mid-west region is facing a waste crisis, with only a single landfill facility fully operational after Clare County Council ceases accepting commercial waste at its Inagh landfill today.

The only fully-functioning landfill will be at Gortnadromma, Co Limerick and environment director with Limerick County Council, Gerry Behan, confirmed “it is likely that the landfill will close in 2013”.

As a result, post-2013 all waste generated in the mid-west will be exported outside the region.

North Tipperary County Council’s Ballyvenny landfill ceased accepting commercial waste in February as it was losing €10,000 per week.

Mr Behan confirmed the likely closure of Gortnadromma after, he said, the council failed to attract a buyer for the landfill in spite of interest from four parties.

Gortnadromma is the largest landfill in the region and has an annual capacity of 130,000 tonnes.

Mr Behan said: “Although there were a number of interested parties, the issue of long-term liability proved to be a stumbling block.” He confirmed the long-term liability over 30 years after the landfill’s closure, would be about €6 million.

He said the council spent €48,000 on the abandoned sale process for Gortnadromma and the facility’s projected loss is €400,000 for this year and anticipates to make a profit of up to €1m in 2012.

“In general the outlook for landfill sites is not promising, as European and national waste policy considers it as the least desirable method of waste disposal. There is a very significant levy on every tonne of waste being landfilled.

“This already means that both the gate fee and volumes of waste to landfill are expected to remain low. As a consequence, landfills are under pressure financially and many have already closed. It is expected that more will close in the next few years,” Mr Behan said.

The closure of Inagh comes nine years after it was opened, in spite of strong local opposition.

Clare councillors voted unanimously to shut down the landfill last year, as the council could not afford to extend the facility with plunging volumes being landfilled. It has an annual capacity of 56,000 — last year, 21,686 tonnes were landfilled there.

The council will continue to accept small quantities of waste from the public. The council confirmed it will face legacy costs totalling €6.5m to the end of 2015.

The council said the amount of waste landfilled in the mid-west between 2005 and 2009 was 175,000 tonnes on an annual basis, but the planned requirement, from 2016 onwards, was 75,000 tonnes per annum.