Everybody seems to think that toxic or "hazardous" waste is produced almost exclusively by big chemical or pharmaceutical companies as a by-product of their drive for profits. But the truth is that we are all involved in adding to Ireland's fast-growing mountain of harmful waste.
Every time we throw out used lead batteries, half-empty cans of paint or even fluorescent lighting tubes we are contributing directly to the problem. And though the volume of hazardous waste arising from the domestic sector is small, it does reflect our devil-may-care attitude to waste disposal.
The most unsettling revelation in the Environmental Protection Agency's management plan is its estimate that up to 487 locations throughout the State may have been used for the disposal of such wastes. These sites include former gasworks and tanneries, as well as old military sites where there may be unexploded shells.
And it is only an estimate, gleaned by trawling through old trade journals and Thom's directories, for example. But given that all such sites have the potential to cause ongoing environmental pollution, the EPA expects local authorities to carry out risk assessments in their areas to determine the extent of the problem.
Laois County Council is already carrying out a pilot survey in co-operation with the EPA and this is due for completion by the end of 2001. The main problem is that nobody really knows what was dumped where before there were any environmental regulations on the disposal of toxic waste such as asbestos.
The EPA's integrated pollution control (IPC) licensing system has at least ensured a high level of compliance from major industries. Where it falls down is in counteracting the activities of "cowboys" in the waste disposal sector and in monitoring SMEs (small and medium enterprises) which generate hazardous waste, sometimes unwittingly. Even today, between 20 and 30 per cent of such waste goes "unreported". But the EPA's programme director, Mr Gerry Carty, insisted that the number of sites requiring decontamination will be "quite small" and the plan does not call for every dump to be dug up. Nobody is suggesting that Ireland is facing a mammoth task cleaning up contaminated sites. Compared to the US and other highly industrialised countries, the overall problem here is small. Indeed, the EPA said yesterday that we rank close to the bottom of an EU table for the amount of hazardous waste.
It is EU policy, however, that such waste should be dealt with domestically rather than exported for treatment or disposal in other member-states. And though there is money to be made from accepting our waste, no guarantee can be given that the export option will continue to be available. Thus, while the EPA plan puts the emphasis on prevention as its cornerstone, it calls for the establishment of incineration facilities and/or special landfill sites for necessary hazardous waste. But wherever these are located, they are bound to be controversial.
Mr Carty emphasised that this element of the plan should not be read as an implicit endorsement of any current hazardous waste incinerator, such as the one proposed by Indaver, a Belgian company, for Ringaskiddy, in Cork Harbour. Some 17 incinerators treating such waste are already operating.
The estimated cost of implementing the plan, at £43.7 million over seven years, does not include any provision for incineration or landfill facilities. Neither does it include the cost of cleaning up contaminated sites, though Mr Carty said there "may well be a need for some funding mechanism", along the lines of the US superfund.
The EPA's plan, which Minister of State Mr Dan Wallace described as "a blueprint for action", comes eight years after its own establishment in 1993 and five years after the 1996 Waste Management Act. And as Mr Declan Burns, one of the agency's directors, said yesterday, it remains "a proposal at this stage", requiring Ministerial decision.
Wheels move slowly though it has long been known that Ireland has a hazardous waste problem. The adoption here of "best international practice" has taken some time and, even now, only a handful of local authorities run separate collections for hazardous waste - something that would be commonplace in Denmark.
The plan puts forward a target of reducing hazardous waste disposal to its 1996 level - a proposal that the industrial sector found hard to accept. But without firm action in preventing these potentially dangerous wastes arising in the first place, their volume would grow by nearly half over the next five years.