Permission for the construction of the first municipal waste incinerator in the State was granted yesterday by An Bord Pleanála. The decision represents a definite step forward, but the investigative and licensing process has some way to go and the plant may not become operational until 2006.
In the meantime, more than half of the existing landfill facilities will have reached capacity and efforts by some local authorities to establish new ones are being fiercely resisted.
A waste management crisis exists which many citizens and protest groups refuse to recognise. Incineration will not, of itself, solve our waste problems. But it is one of the elements that must be developed if we are to deal with the mountains of domestic waste the consumer society has brought in its wake.
Recycling should be the cutting edge of the official response to waste management. Unfortunately, however, progress has been slow and uneven. Limited recycling facilities have been provided by local authorities. And they depend for their success on the voluntary efforts of citizens who must bring the materials to the centres. A comprehensive, integrated collection system involving separation, recycling and weight-related disposal is still a long way away.
The blame for this waste crisis lies not just with the communities that refused to tolerate disposal systems in their localities, but with successive governments and with local politicians who declined to take hard decisions.
The planning permission granted for the incinerator near Duleek has a number of conditions attached in an attempt to reassure local people that the plant will not grow into a monster. Its capacity has been restricted to 150,000 tonnes per annum and its catchment area has been confined to Cos Meath, Louth, Cavan and Monaghan. The logic underlying this approach is that the State will require a number of moderate-sized incinerators, rather than a few very large ones. That is as it should be. Waste generated locally should, insofar as it is possible, be treated locally, with recycling and landfill playing major parts.
The Anti-Incinerator Alliance Group, which has contested this development from the outset, intends to object to the granting of an operating licence by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on the grounds of risk to public health and to the environment. The group is entirely within its rights. But this new appeal is unlikely to alter the decision. On two occasions in the recent past, the EPA has recommended the construction of incinerators to the Government as necessary elements in the safe disposal of toxic and other waste materials. In spite of that, the investigation involved in this licensing process should help to reassure the local community on public health and other issues. For too long, the issue of waste disposal has been avoided. Difficult decisions are now required.