DUBLIN will need three new landfill sites similar in size to the facility near Kill, Co Kildare, as well as up to two incinerators, to dispose of its waste over the next 15 years, according to a leading expert on waste management. These would be necessary even with a seven-fold rise in recycling.
Mr P.J. Rudden, of consulting engineers M.C. O'Sullivan, told a major conference on waste management that some form of "thermal treatment" was also being proposed in studies which his firm was now completing for local authorities in the north-east and mid-west.
"If we want to achieve a substantial diversion of waste from landfill, there isn't any other way to do it apart from thermal treatment. Even if we reduce landfill to 15 per cent, Dublin will need three new landfill sites the size of Kill over the next 15 years and one or two thermal treatment plants."
Mr Rudden said, apart from Greece, the Republic was the only EU country which did not use some form of incineration for municipal waste. However, the Dublin local authorities had now accepted the need for "thermal treatment" by substantial majorities in adopting a new waste management strategy.
He told the conference, organised by the UK Institute of Wastes Management, that the incinerator in Vienna was such an architectural marvel that it had become a tourist attraction. The public could also be assured that modern incineration was "safe and secure".
Dr Yvonne Scannell, of Trinity College, said there was a need for more private sector involvement in waste management, aided by local authorities acquiring suitable landfill sites. However, even if a site was a "brilliant place" to put a landfill, there would still be public objections.
She said she favoured incineration as a primary waste disposal option. "The Danes incinerate most of their waste. The municipal waste incinerator in Vienna is in the middle of the city and, in Brussels, it's right beside a residential area. So what's the problem?"
In Ireland, however, public perception of incineration was "very paranoid". She believed the public should have more confidence in the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to regulate the waste sector.
Mr Gerry Carty, head of waste management at the EPA, said the Danish authorities had encountered severe problems placing or expanding incinerators, "just as we have run into with landfills". Because of this, baled municipal waste was now being "stockpiled" pending new disposal facilities.
He said the number of landfill sites in the Republic had been reduced from 115 to 85 in recent years. So far, the EPA had issued only four licences because "practically every draft licence" is being appealed by objectors.
Mr Stephen Aston, chief waste adviser at the Northern Ireland Department of the Environment, said waste management needed "more radicalism". While everyone was said to favour the EU's policy giving top priority to reducing the volume of waste, nobody was doing very much to implement it.
He said industry would respond when it realised that there was no alternative to complying with higher standards: i.e. a requirement that new products must contain at least 10 per cent recycled materials.
The Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey, said he foresaw the growth of a commercial waste industry in Ireland, contributing "specialist expertise on alternative and emerging waste technologies" through public-private partnerships. There was also considerable scope for North-South co-operation.
