Pollution fines need to be stronger as minority flout environment rules

THIS week’s story, that it is necessary to put cameras on waste collection trucks to identify those who abuse the free waste recycling scheme by smuggling black-bin rubbish into green bins, says a lot about Ireland and not too much of it is admirable. It does though touch on a common theme.

It says a lot about our casual dishonesty and our attitude towards waste disposal and the environment. It also says that despite great advances in waste management and reduction there remains a rump who think the waste they generate is not their responsibility. That this issue came to the fore when 160 containers of Irish waste destined for China — yes, that China on the other side of the world — were turned back at Rotterdam because they were contaminated suggests a practice that might not be, by any criteria, a solution. If, say, 10 containers were blocked, the issue could be set aside but that 160 containers were rejected shows a deep cultural malaise.

This manifests itself in opposition to nearly any effort to process the waste we, as individuals or industry, generate. Next month, 20 years after it was proposed and a decade after it was approved by planning authorities, the Poolbeg incinerator in Dublin will start burning waste. An incinerator first proposed for Cork Harbour in 2001 is still in the planning process. The promoters await a ruling on a third planning application. Irrespective of your position on incinerators these timescales hardly represent a commitment to safe, clean or viable waste management.