The joint waste-management strategy for Cork city and county is falling apart because of the city's failure to deliver on an essential element of the arrangement. Restrictions on dumping are now being put in place to conserve landfill sites operated by both authorities.
The decision last week by Cork Corporation to vote against the provision of a materials recovery facility (MRF) at the Kinsale Road municipal dump, undermined Cork County Council. The council fulfilled its part of the joint waste strategy by agreeing to a "superdump" at Bottlehill, half way between Cork and Mallow.
In doing so, the councillors faced tough political decisions and the anger of the Bottlehill community. They told local residents the Bottlehill dump would only receive waste material after it had been segregated at the MRF which the city would provide. Believing this service would be supplied, the Cork County Development Plan was subsequently altered by a majority vote of the county councillors to pave the way for the superdump.
The Cork county manager, Mr Maurice Moloney, must now explain to the council and the Bottlehill residents the reasons the MRF will not be provided by the city. His task will not be easy as council members might not have agreed to the arrangement from the start if they thought the city would pull out of the joint plan at the last minute.
Instead of a joint plan, according to Mr Moloney, the Cork region is facing an imminent waste-management crisis.
Separate advice notices have been issued to generators of commercial waste by the two local authorities. As of yesterday, Cork County Council has banned all commercial waste from its Rossmore dump near Carrigtwohill in east Cork and Cork Corporation has done the same in respect of the Kinsale Road dump. In the normal course of things, it might be expected that the commercial sector users of the Kinsale Road dump would switch to the county facility at Rossmore as an outlet for their waste but that option will not be open to them.
Mr Moloney insists the county has its own space pressures and its dumps will not accept diverted commercial waste from the city.
In north Cork, the county's Ballyguyroe dump will close within weeks and Rossmore will take its load. By barring commercial waste and keeping landfill at last year's level, the facility will have a projected life up to 2003, by which time, in theory, Bottlehill will be on stream.
But that will only happen, said Mr Moloney, if the waste arriving there has first been processed by an MRF. That was the commitment both he and Cork County Council made to the Bottlehill residents and there is no going back on the pledge, he added.
The region is preparing to debate incineration as a partial answer to the waste-management problem.
Existing landfill options are running out and will be full or almost full within five years. Without facilities such as Bottlehill, burning waste or exporting it to other counties, may be all that's left. There will be no superdump to serve the city and county without an MRF and opposition to a proposed toxic/domestic waste incineration plant at Ringaskiddy is mounting. On top of all this, the region has had a negligible response to attempts to make people aware of waste and to separate it at home.
Just as Cork County Council pledged there would not be a superdump without the MRF, Cork Corporation members have promised the residents living near the Kinsale Road dump for almost 30 years that when it closes, the site will be landscaped as a park. Putting an MRF there would break the promise, they claim.
The question now arises as to whether the joint waste-management strategy, first proposed in 1995 and which really became flesh three years ago, can be salvaged. If not, both authorities will go their separate ways and duplicate services, even though available landfill resources are running out. What are the implications, for instance, for the Cork Area Strategic Plan (CASP) drawn up by both authorities to plot the progress of greater Cork for the next 20 years?
Some would say that if they can't agree on waste, they will hardly be able to work together on a vast, integrated plan for housing, jobs, transport and even the creation of a new town.
There is growing evidence the city's long-term objective may be to hive off waste management to private contractors and that incineration will also form part of future plans. It may be left to the county to build its own MRF to serve Bottlehill and incineration may also be looked at as another option. Time will tell.
In the meantime, Mr Moloney must face his councillors and explain how a much-vaunted plan has come unstuck. Today he will meet the general purposes committee of the council to hear its views and tell what he knows. There will be no further correspondence with Cork Corporation on the matter until a full meeting of the council has been convened.