Over half of the 600,000 tonnes a year of waste that will be needed by the Poolbeg incinerator will travel there by the M50 and the Port Tunnel, Dublin City Council has declared.
Nearly 140 20-tonne containers and an unidentified number of 10-tonne containers will be necessary daily to supply the controversial incinerator, which is strongly opposed in the Dublin South East constituency.
Just over 100 of the larger trucks would travel via the M50 and the tunnel, though 40 of them would have to travel through the city at off-peak hours - an issue that has caused sharp opposition in Dublin's south inner city.
The "bulk of the material" will be transported to Poolbeg between the off-peak hours of 7.30pm and 10.30pm, local TD and the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Michael McDowell, was told by the council.
Recyclable material will be taken out of the waste at five stations spread throughout the city, before the rest is compacted, baled and transported to Poolbeg by the M50 and Dublin Port Tunnel in the 20-tonne containers.
However, waste from Ringsend, Sandymount, Mount Merrion, Ballsbridge, Ranelagh, Rathmines and the southeast inner city, along with rubbish from Fairview, Marino, Dollymount, Drumcondra and the northeast inner city will be taken directly to Poolbeg in 10-tonne trucks.
In a letter to the Minister in March, the council's assistant city manager, Matt Twomey, said 144 containers weighing 20 tonnes would have to be delivered five days a week to Poolbeg, along with an unidentified number of the smaller 10-tonne containers from the inner city.
However, in a letter in January to the Minister, Mr Twomey quoted significantly different transport figures, saying that 230 10-tonne containers of rubbish would have to be carried daily to Poolbeg.
Dublin City Council intends to apply for planning permission to build a 600,000-tonne incinerator to cope with 25 per cent of the capital's annual waste.
In his March letter Mr Twomey wrote that the city council would seek extra waste to burn "from the areas immediately adjoining Co Dublin" if the 600,000 tonnes target was not met by the capital.
However, he said Dublin produced 2.4 million tonnes of rubbish annually: "It is only in the event of waste not being available in Dublin that waste from outside the Dublin area would be sought for processing in the plant."
Poisonous residues, created by cleaning the incinerator's chimney flues, and fly ash - which are expected to total 5 per cent of the weight of the rubbish burned - will be taken to Germany and Norway to be destroyed safely.
The incinerator's operators will be contractually obliged to guarantee that the majority of the rest of the ash produced, so-called "bottom ash", will be recycled, perhaps to make bricks and blocks.
However, Mr Twomey was unable to "give any clear view" as to whether an Irish plant to recycle "bottom ash" would be viable, or whether the ash would have to be exported: "It would largely depend on the number and capacity of incineration plants approved nationally," he told Mr McDowell.
The residues left over from incineration would be shipped out of Dublin Port and would not have to be taken out by road, the assistant city manager said.
The electricity produced by the Poolbeg incinerator will be fed into the national grid, and the hot water that will also be produced could be used to heat homes in the Dublin Docklands area if successful feasibility studies are developed, Mr Twomey added.
