Local authorities in the greater Dublin area are to decide within a year where to locate the largest thermal treatment plant (incinerator) to be built in the State. Engineering consultants have concluded Ringsend is the preferred location for a facility to process a quarter of the region's waste.
Four possible locations were named yesterday as councillors were given detailed recommendations on how best to implement a £300 million integrated waste- management plan which includes an ambitious target of 60 per cent recycling of municipal waste.
Incineration has been recommended by consultants M. C. O'Sullivan and Danish thermal treatment experts, COWI. The facility would process 450,000 tonnes a year, and account for that portion of waste which cannot be reused or recycled, and be in place within seven years.
Other possible locations are: Robinhood, fronting on to Bally mount Road between Walkins town and Tallaght (near the Ballymount waste-transfer station and beside the M50); Cherrywood, Loughlinstown, in Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown (beside the planned "C ring" of the M50) and a vacant site on the city side of Newlands Cross, Clondalkin.
At a briefing for councillors, Mr P. J. Rudden of M.C. O'Sullivan said one of the most sensitive environmental issues was facing the region. While the plan drastically cuts dependence on landfill, the Dublin region will need new landfill facilities, despite plans to build two new biological treatment plants (composting units) to process 90,000 tonnes a year of organic waste, mainly from households,
They are to be located on the site of the Ballyogan landfill in Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown, soon to be closed, and near the former Dunsink landfill in Fingal, close to the M50.
The Ringsend facility is proposed for a vacant industrial site between the city's waste-water treatment facility and a pitch-and-putt course on Poolbeg peninsula. It will now be examined in more detail, Mr Rudden confirmed. "It's an existing industrial area, with no houses within one kilometre of the site, and there is potential for reusing the energy generated in the upgraded waste-water treatment plant currently being built nearby."
Mr Rudden said he believed 60 per cent recycling was attainable. His company did not deny a downside with incineration in that up to 10,000 tonnes of fly-ash would need to be land-filled. People would not be as fearful, however, if they saw how incinerators were located near residential areas in Europe. Emissions would be within EU limits.
