Parties criticise Roche over waste

Opposition parties have criticised the Government's record on waste following the publication of an Environmental Protection Agency report, which showed that one-quarter of households were not availing of waste collection services.

Minister for the Environment Dick Roche and Labour clashed on the thermal treatment of waste, with the Minister saying more incinerators would be necessary and Labour criticising his "misplaced" reliance on such "old-fashioned" methods.

Mr Roche said that with households churning out more than 1.5 million tonnes of rubbish a year, burning more waste had to be considered as part of a wider strategy.

"You don't need an incinerator in every county. But we will need incinerators, and we will have to have a number of incinerators," he told RTÉ.

Mr Roche said that without incineration 75 per cent of waste would end up in landfill sites. He insisted that he would not rule out an incinerator for his own constituency in Co Wicklow.

The agency's annual waste report for 2004 found that more than three million tonnes of waste was created last year. Some 70,000 tonnes of mixed waste was exported.

Green Party environment spokesman Ciarán Cuffe warned that shipping waste abroad was not the answer. "The fact remains that we are producing the most waste of any country in Europe, and we are producing the most packaging waste of any country in Europe," he said.

Fine Gael environment spokesman Fergus O'Dowd said the report showed the Government still had not tackled the massive problems with packaging waste and biodegradable materials.

"The report illustrates clearly that the public wants to recycle, but the Government is refusing to provide the infrastructure to allow them to do so," he said.

Labour said the public was far ahead of the Government and the Minister in its approach to waste and recycling.

A rural lobby group has called for more transparency on waste collection charges. Irish Rural Link has also called for a national waiver system to allow vulnerable groups to meet the growing cost of waste collection services in rural as well as urban areas.

Seamus Boland, chief executive of the group, criticised the lack of action by local authorities in dealing with waste collection in rural areas.