Irish Examiner - 19/09/05
Waste policy is not what we deserve

GAIA’s recent global day of action against incineration (September 7) struck a tender chord among many people in Cork.

This was in view of the awful proposal to build two mass burn incinerators for all of Ireland’s toxic waste as well as all of Cork’s and Kerry’s municipal waste.

To date only 5% of incinerator stack emissions have been identified: lead, mercury, arsenic, cadmium and dioxins (Agent Orange) with a fallout radius of 40 km.

The EPA’s draft licences for the Cork incinerators include infectious medical waste, sludge from septic tanks, sewage centres and chemical sludge, meat and bone meal, manure, slurries, tyres, plastic, etc., to be burnt round the clock.

All can be successfully treated/disposed of (many at source) by clean production, re-design, separation, recovery, substitution, being made inert, remediation, re-use, reduction, recycling and composting.

Ireland aspires to be one of the world’s leaders in technology. Our Government’s waste mismanagement and outdated policy of ‘bury it or burn it,’ with not a pilot scheme in sight for any of the above, falls lamentably short of what the Irish people deserve and are capable of.

A recent contributor to your letters page, Ted Crosbie (Irish Exminer, July 29) stated that incineration would improve the environment. Burning 200,000 tonnes per annum of the foregoing waste 6.6 miles (as the crow flies) from the centre of Cork city cannot by any stretch of the imagination enhance Cork’s environment.

Joan Masson
The Terrace
Currabinny
Co Cork