Madam, - I'm appalled at Minister Martin Cullen's blind insistence that Ireland must build incinerators. He says that "regions will suffer economically if they fail to put proper waste management at the top of their agendas" (April 7th). This is probably true.
However, he wrongly equates "proper waste management" with "building incinerators". To say that a country or a region will lose business because it doesn't have incinerators is nothing more than scaremongering.
His flippant dismissal of "Zero Waste", which focuses strongly on waste prevention, may explain why he is doing very little about this issue.
In the US, legislated waste prevention programmes, which focus on waste reduction through product and process redesign, have been a huge success.
Take Massachusetts for example, where overall generation of hazardous waste was reduced by 43 per cent over a 10- year period during a growth period of 49 per cent.
This success made building 600,000 tonnes of hazardous waste incinerators unnecessary, and has been replicated across the US.
The US is moving away from incineration, and has not built any incinerators in the last 10 years.
Mr Cullen should follow suit and spend more time enforcing waste prevention and less time changing legislation, steamrolling planning boards, bullying local populations and scaremongering businesses with statements like the above in order to get incinerators built.
Ireland must manage its own waste, that is beyond question, but it is currently at a junction where it can follow Europe and marry the incinerator, or follow best practice, and adopt the more modern US example.
The US approach to waste management hasn't damaged their business.
It wouldn't hurt Irish business either. - Yours, etc.,
LINDA FITZPATRICK, Hilltown, Carrigaline, Co Cork.
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Madam, - May I suggest that Minister Cullen reconsider the location of the proposed incinerator for the Boyne Valley area and relocate it from his preferred site near Newgrange to the Hill of Tara.
As I am sure he will agree, this would be a wonderful location from which to distribute dioxins over a 40-mile radius in all directions of the compass.
Just imagine, this would be a fitting and everlasting memorial to an Environment Minister who is rapidly becoming a legend in his own lifetime in terms of his overriding commitment to waste management in our country. - Yours, etc.,
NORCOTT ROBERTS, Monkstown, Co Cork.