Council votes to support relocation of waste facility

Pressure is mounting on a waste firm after Cork City Council voted last night to support the relocation of the firm’s 100,000-tonne waste facility to a non-residential area.

The council has also agreed to write to the Environment Minister, and has already written to the Environmental Protection Agency, expressing its concerns about the operation of Country Clean’s waste depot in Churchfield. It has emerged that the EPA is now trying to establish if the facility has reached its tonnage capacity three months earlier than expected.

The news emerged during a council meeting last night which heard cross-party support for two motions calling for the waste facility to be relocated.

Members of the Northside Says No To Rubbish campaigners, who brought their protest to the steps of City Hall last week, were in the public gallery to watch the debate.

“Whoever granted this licence should be sacked,” said Sinn Féin councillor Tom Gould.

Socialist Party councillor Mick Barry said: “This is not a question of regulation, this is fundamentally a question of relocation.”

Fianna Fáil councillor Tony Fitzgerald said residents were being denied a basic human right — access to fresh air in their homes.

Several councillors said while a long-term waste strategy was needed, the people of Churchfield needed action in the short-term.

Campaigners have now given the various agencies until next week to resolve the problems with the site, or they will significantly escalate their protest.

Country Clean, which bought the city’s domestic waste collection service in 2009, is now processing most of the domestic waste produced in the city at the Churchfield facility located within a few hundreds metres of houses, and near sports fields. Residents have complained about odours, vermin, and noise from late-night recycling operations. The facility has been picketed several times in recent weeks.

In a meeting facilitated by local gardaí last Friday, the campaigners were told that the facility was still in breach of its operating licence, which was granted in January.

Of nine breaches previously identified, four issues have yet to be addressed.

The EPA is treating the site as a “national priority site” pending completion of improvement works.

County Clean says it is working “very hard” to fast-track those improvements to ensure its site is fully compliant.

It also emerged last night that the city contributes up to €500,000 to Cork County Council for the upkeep of the mothballed Bottlehill superdump.