HOUSEHOLDS WILL pay more for waste collection if the draft national waste policy published by Minister for the Environment John Gormley becomes law, Dublin City Council has said.
The council will next week make a submission, on behalf of the four Dublin local authorities, to the Department of the Environment in relation to the draft policy that was released for public consultation by Mr Gormley last July.
If introduced, the new policy would make large incinerators such as the Poolbeg incinerator unviable. Mr Gormley announced his intention to change national waste policy in 2007 on the day An Bord Pleanála granted permission for the 600,000-tonne capacity incinerator.
The policy would stop local authorities from directing waste collection firms to use particular facilities. “Deviating away from the regional approach will most likely lead to the development of numerous, cost-intensive, small-scale waste facilities which are less economically viable, which will ultimately result in businesses and households paying more,” the council said.
The draft policy proposes moving control of waste regulation, licensing and enforcement from local authorities to a national agency and scrapping regional waste-management plans in favour of national plans devised by the minister of the day. In Dublin, these plans would be implemented by a new directly elected mayor.
The council is also opposing this measure. Any national plans should support rather than override the regional waste plans, it said, and decisions about what sort of waste facilities were built and where they were sited should remain within the control of local authorities.
Mr Gormley’s proposed waste policy would introduce fines for local authorities that did not prevent waste from going to landfill or incinerators by achieving a reduction in the amount of household waste.
This policy proposal was “unenforceable”, the council said, and contradicted the “polluter pays” principle by penalising the local authority, not the householder, for generating waste.
The draft policy proposes that mechanical biological treatment (MBT) – the Minister’s preferred waste-treatment technology, involving the extraction of biodegradable and recyclable elements from waste – be exempt from levies.
The council said there was “no justification for this”. MBT removed the responsibility for sorting and reducing waste from the householder, it said.
