The residents of Sandymount, Ringsend and Irishtown in Dublin have pledged to fight plans to locate a municipal waste incinerator on their doorstep after Poolbeg peninsula emerged as the likely location. They have already fought off plans for a hazardous waste treatment facility in the area.
Local people feel they have taken more than their fair share of facilities for the city, said Mr Eoin Ryan TD (FF). "This is an area that will be getting another power station, is already treating the city's sewage, is the location of a cement factory, and is the recipient of a huge amount of Dublin port and Eastlink traffic."
The Dublin city manager, Mr John Fitzgerald, said that no matter what waste infrastructure was involved, it gave rise to local concerns. The thermal treatment plant would be subject to a long consultation process to reassure residents. He believed incineration was "proven to operate very, very safely" with most European cities having at least one incinerator.
The Labour spokesman on the environment, Mr Eamon Gilmore, claimed nobody believed a 60 per cent recycling target could be achieved in Dublin before the incinerator was in place. Green TD Mr John Gormley, who lives in Ringsend, said local people had been aware of the likelihood their area would be chosen, but it was "a bit rich" that some representatives of larger parties were now saying they were opposed to an incinerator there, when they had declined on three occasions to support his party's efforts to delete thermal treatment from Dublin's waste strategy plan.
By their nature, incinerators militated against proper implementation of "reduce, re-use and recycle" waste strategies, he said. The link between incineration and dioxins was indisputable.
"Dioxin is the most toxic substance known and is emitted when chlorinated plastics are burnt. I will not stand by and allow such a health hazard to be situated in the middle of my community. I know I can count on the backing of local people."
A local environmentalist and science teacher, Mrs Catherine Cavendish, said the reality was the proposed incinerator was nearer Sandymount strand and its adjoining residential area than people living in Ringsend. It was also an "appalling threat" to an important wild-bird area at the Liffey estuary.
