Seven municipal waste incinerators need to be in operation in the Republic by 2010 to deal with the growing level of municipal rubbish, according to the managing director of Indaver Ireland.
Mr John Ahern said research from the World Health Organisation claimed it was safe to locate modern incinerators close to densely populated areas.
He was addressing delegates at the Institution of Engineers of Ireland annual conference in Belfast yesterday.
In accepting public antagonism to incinerators, Mr Ahern said communities were right to seek the highest level of protection for their environment. However, the waste crisis here could no longer be ignored.
Traditional disposal methods which relied on landfill and the export of hazardous waste would soon be exhausted, he warned.
Mr Ahern took a brief break from the Bord Pleanála hearing into Indaver's proposed €90 million hazardous waste incinerator at Ringaskiddy, Co Cork, to address the conference on the role of incineration in a sustainable national waste-management plan.
A second Indaver project is also delayed. The company was granted permission for a municipal waste incinerator in Carranstown, Co Meath, by An Bord Pleanála last May and has applied to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for a licence.
However, the planning process for the €85 million plant is now the subject of a judicial review following objections by the No Incinerator Alliance.
According to Mr Ahern, all the best expert advice available showed an integrated waste plan "including the thermal option, can provide a safe solution".
Mr Ahern referred to an EPA study which estimated that more than 84 per cent of dioxin emissions in 2010 would come from people burning rubbish in their backyard or fires at landfill sites.
This study claimed only 1.8 per cent of dioxins would come from incineration that year if the thermal waste-treatment plants identified in regional waste management plans became operational.
Burning rubbish in a waste-to-energy process at a minimum temperature of 850 degrees Celsius reduced its volume by 90 per cent. Most of the ash produced was harmless and could be used in road-building, Mr Ahern said.
He admitted the burning of batteries and fluorescent bulbs did produce hazardous ash when those products were mixed in with general waste. This by- product would be disposed of in a licensed hazardous waste landfill or reduced through improved recycling, he told the conference.
Mr Ahern also stressed that incinerators did not hamper recycling. He pointed to the experience of Indaver in Flanders, Belgium, where Indaver "manages one million tonnes of waste per annum and it recycles half of that".
