Irish Examiner - 18/04/05
Cork’s incineration lesson for Dublin

DUBLIN Chamber of Commerce spokeswoman Gina Quinn has taken up the cause for fast-tracking the Poolbeg incinerator.

How I wish Ms Quinn and her colleagues, who see incineration as the cure-all for our long history of lax waste management, would give up six weeks of their lives to attend the oral hearings, as many of us have had to do in Cork.

There they would hear some of the things the incinerator firms are not telling them.

They would hear, for example, how the Ringaskiddy site is manifestly unsuitable for incinerators, failing almost every WHO guideline on site selection.

They would hear that a US Environmental Protection Agency area report has estimated that from one in 1,000 to one in 100 people in areas affected by emissions will get cancer. They would hear how studies of the effects on health have been conducted mostly on adults while our children are 25 times more seriously affected.

And they would hear how one major source of information for our government agencies is the incinerator company itself. None of this information would have emerged if the proposal had been fast-tracked.

Ms Quinn was anxious about the cost of waste disposal to businesses. A recent BBC TV programme highlighted the importance of designing things that can be mended, used for parts or deconstructed to separate different materials used for recycling and composting.

Joan Hayes
East Ferry
Midleton
Co Cork