A crisis growing every day
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Fact:
If waste sorting and recycling became standard practice, more than
two-thirds of domestic waste could be re-used or recycled.
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Shortage of landfill sites has reached crisis proportions in Ireland.
Existing dumps are full up and have to close. Finding new ones is a
major problem. Environmentalists are saying that no landfill site is
safe, no lining can be 100% effective against the highly toxic
leachates. No one wants a landfill site near them.
Last week over 100 people in Ballinasloe stood out in the freezing
weather to block access to their local dump at Poolboy. Galway City
refuse was going to Galway Corporation dump at Carrowbrowne, until it
was forced, on high court order, to close. The corpo started to dump
the garbage into the Ballinasloe dump. Poolboy is only licensed by
the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) to take 40,000 tons of
garbage. With the closure of Carrowbrowne, Poolboy becomes the only
dump in the county which needs to dispose of over 100,000 tons per
annum.
Local UDC members in Ballinasloe said they believed that the UDC was
acting illegally in allowing Galway refuse into Poolboy. The protest
was summarily stopped by an injunction taken by the UDC against the
Ballinasloe picketers, and Galway City collections, which had been
stopped, resumed.
The protesters, determined to fight the injunction came back to court
last Monday (17 January) where in order to facilitate them to prepare
their case against the UDC, the matter was adjourned until 11
February. Meanwhile the injunction stands, and the dumping of
Galway's garbage at Poolboy, illegal or not, goes on.
At a Galway council meeting last Friday, councillors were enraged to
hear that plans for investigating three sites for a county superdump
were known to the people before the councillors were informed.
Reluctant to see the issue become a political football between
councillors in the forthcoming local elections, some councillors were
relieved at the plan for a £40 million `thermal treatment' plant
(another word for an incinerator) near the city.
Environmentalists have argued that incineration is worse than
landfill, because although it reduces bulk, burning waste pollutes
the atmosphere and the remaining highly toxic ash, consisting of very
small particles, offers a bigger surface area for toxicity to leach
into its environment.
But landfill problems are not limited to Co. Galway. Cork city and
county dump at Kinsale Road is scheduled to close next year. A
replacement has to be found. Dublin, which has over one million tons
of residential and commercial waste to dispose of, faces similar
problems, with the Ballealy tip head at Lusk scheduled to close in
five years.
Under the 1996 Waste Management Act, local authorities bear the
ultimate responsibility. While the problem is seen in terms of
choosing between political constituencies for super dumps, it has no
equitable, legal or sustainable solution. As Brian Stanley, a Sinn
Fein candidate in Portlaoise, says, ``the Three R's do not amount to
`educating' households to take their plastic bags back to Dunnes
Stores, or passing leaflets round the schools and doors calling on
people to sort their waste. It requires at least that each local
authority enables householders to separate their waste at source and
collects the sorted waste, without penalising householders with
increasing costs.''
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