The Fianna Fáil TD for Galway East, Mr Joe Callanan, has appealed to Galway County Council to rethink its proposed location for Connacht's new landfill near New Inn.
The Green Party also warned yesterday that incineration was "very much on the agenda" for Galway city, but forecast that a decision on the location for a thermal treatment plant would not be made until after next year's local elections.
The choice of New Inn for one of two landfills required under the Connacht Waste Management Plan was defended yesterday by RPS-M. C. O'Sullivan (MCOS), the consulting engineers advising the council. Mr P .J. Rudden, director of RPS-MCOS and author of the Connacht waste plan, said the main aim was to increase recycling and composting rates in Galway.
The waste management plan aims to achieve 48 per cent recycling across all of Connacht, with just 19 per cent of waste going to landfill and 33 per cent being thermally treated, generating energy.
Already, Galway city's recycling and composting have reached 52 per cent, and over 80 per cent of refuse charges are being paid, according to the local authority.
Two landfills - one in Co Galway and one in Mayo-Roscommon - are earmarked in the plan, which also identifies Galway city as the location for an incinerator or thermal treatment for the province.
The Galway county manager, Mr Donal O'Donoghue, told The Irish Times the proposed site would be subject to a full Envirionmental Impact Statement, and Galway County Council was well advanced towards achieving a 35 per cent recycling target.
A Fine Gael councillor, Mr Michael Mullins, said recycling could only be described as a success in Galway city and in Ballinasloe. The rest of the county, and the province, had a long way to go, he said. The rural community of New Inn has already had a very bad experience of landfills, having had to put up with a dump in the area for 18 years from 1971 to 1989, Mr Mullins said.
RPOS-MCOS has said that the proposed landfill at New Inn will take up to 1.5 million tonnes of municipal waste over 10 to 15 years.
