THE IRISH Waste Management Association (IWMA) has called on Minister for the Environment John Gormley to ban the export of hazardous ash material produced from waste incineration process in Ireland.
With the quantity of ash produced likely to reach 250,000 tonnes over the next few years, if all current incinerator plans are implemented, the IWMA said its export would also amount to the loss of a commodity worth more than €20 million per annum.
Ireland currently lacks a national framework for dealing with this new waste product. We “trail Europe in our ability to manage incinerator ash”.
The IWMA also stated that exporting ash would be wrong both environmentally and economically.
“We are imposing our waste on other countries and will remain completely reliant on these countries to continue accepting our ash,” the IWMA said.
“Instead of recognising the resource value of the ash, we are literally shipping money and jobs out of the country.”
It noted that Germany has already banned this material from crossing its borders and said export to other countries would leave Ireland vulnerable under EU law.
“It is imperative Ireland can manage what it produces,” said IWMA chairman Jim Kells.
A new EU waste framework directive approved last November requires member states to have regard for the principles of “self-sufficiency” and “proximity”– and that all waste should be treated as close as possible to where it is produced.
The proposed Poolbeg incinerator in Dublin would have a capacity to burn 600,000 tonnes per annum and planning conditions specify that all of its waste ash would have to be exported. Up to 25,000 tonnes of the ash produced annually would be hazardous.
“The Poolbeg development would bring incineration here in Ireland to a new scale and we must put the necessary framework in place to deal with it”, Mr Kells said.
He said that the IWMA had written to the Minister for the Environment urging him to introduce the necessary framework.
“We are calling on the Minister for Environment to exercise his powers to create the regulatory certainty that will incentivise investment in the necessary treatment facilities and to allow us realise the benefits that can accrue from these exciting new developments”.