Exporting waste - Opportunity squandered?

Campaigns run with the best of intentions can sometimes have unintended consequences.

Those who ran a long and determined campaign to stop a waste incinerator being built in Cork Harbour could not have imagined their victory would lead to a situation where an estimated 50,000 tonnes of domestic waste will be exported from Cork this year because local authorities do not have facilities to deal with it.

Shipments leave Cork every three weeks to the Netherlands or Sweden, where the waste is used in incinerators to generate electricity.

It does seem bizarre that we are paying to export our waste to a country that uses it to reduce its dependence on oil. Surely we should use the material here to reduce our own energy dependency.