A Co Limerick rendering plant has been ordered by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to clean up two unofficial dumps containing up to 1,000 tonnes of ground bone.
Dromkeen Food Ingredients, formerly known as Marrow Meats, has been found to be in breach of its integrated pollution control licence on two counts for dumping waste calcium phosphate, the main constituent of bone, at Montpelier in Co Limerick, and near Donohill, Co Tipperary. The EPA has not decided whether to mount a prosecution.
A University of Limerick chemist has analysed a sample, finding that it was 24 per cent "volatile organic material", probably animal carcass, and 52 per cent calcium phosphate.
The EPA was informed of the dump in Montpelier, near the Shannon, by concerned local people in January.
Mr Noel Nicholas, managing director of the west Limerick factory, has since informed the agency through a county council official of another unofficial dump on the Limerick-Tipperary border near the village of Donohill.
About 100 tonnes had been dumped in plastic bags and covered in a plastic sheet.
The EPA stated in its "notification of non-compliance" to Mr Nicholas that the waste at both dumps had to be removed to a safe storage area "protected against spillage and leachate run-off".
Mr Nicholas has until mid March to remove the waste at both dumps. The one at Montpelier is now partially covered by grass.
The EPA said the company had breached the condition that off-site waste disposal should be confined to sites operated by a local authority or a licensed body, and that waste would be "only transported from the site of the activity to the site of the disposal in a manner which will not affect the environment."
It added that a condition that "while awaiting disposal, all material shall be collected and stored in designated areas protected against spillage and leachate run-off" was also breached.
It is not known from which animals the calcium phosphate is derived.
Mr Nicholas, who is to make proposals to the EPA on cleaning up the dumps, had no comment yesterday, except to say that he had issued a statement on January 31st and he stood over it.
In that statement he said the calcium phosphate was "wholly safe", and was a material used in the pharmaceutical, food, ceramic and fertiliser industries.
But Dr J.J. Leahy of the Department of Chemical and Environmental Sciences in UL said the preliminary results from an analysis of a 1kg sample of the material showed that it was just 52 per cent calcium phosphate and 24 per cent "volatile organic material" which was water-soluble.
"I cannot say for certain yet, but judging from its origins it is some carcass or some piece of a carcass from an animal. It certainly smells foul, but that does not mean it is dangerous," he said.
Mr Daragh Lynott, a senior EPA inspector, said he had requested all findings on the material to be forwarded to his office. He said the removal of the material from the dumps would be supervised.