Representatives from five midland counties to view thermal treatment plants in Germany

Representatives of five midland counties which are finalising a joint waste management plan will fly out to Germany today to view thermal treatment plants. These include a new generation of gasification plants which claim to discharge no measurable dioxin or furane emissions to the atmosphere.

The party of 35 elected councillors and officials from Westmeath, Offaly, Longford, Tipperary (North) and Laois are travelling to the Heidelberg region, where they will inspect a traditional thermal treatment plant which incinerates rubbish producing heat energy and salt as by-products, a local authority owned composting plant and recycling facilities.

They will also be taken to what is described as the world's first full-scale gasification plant located at Karlsruhe, which uses "shock cooling" of gases released when rubbish is "carbonised" at 2,000. It is designed to remove completely dioxins and furanes, the compounds released by some incinerators, and which have led to opposition to thermal treatment. The plant is designed by Thermoselect, whose Irish associate Thermolink has recommended it for use to the five midland counties as part of its waste management plan.

According to Thermolink's representative, Mr Fergus Murphy, the plant represents a breakthrough in that it produces a contained gas which can be burnt to generate electricity, inert crystallised granules which can be used in construction industry and small quantities of zinc, sulphur and salt of industrial quality. The plant has no flue or chimney.

A second Thermoselect gasification plant has recently been commissioned in Chiba, Tokyo Bay in Japan.

Costs at the Karlsruhe plant include a gate charge of about £110 million a tonne; while this is expected to be reduced to £75 to £80 million a tonnne in the Irish context, it still represents a significant increase on existing costs. In addition the plant would be expected to cost in the region of £80£100 million, although a design, build, finance and operate public/private partnership has been suggested by Thermolink as the most appropriate way to proceed.

According to Waste Management consultants M.C. O'Sullivan, which has been retained by the midland counties as consultants on the waste management plan, the shock cooling treatment in the Karlsruhe plant is a new generation of thermal treatment but may take some years before a suitable body of statistics and monitoring can be compiled in support of it.

While in Germany, the representatives will also visit a thermal treatment plant operated by the German company Sotec, which claims to have reduced the dioxin and furane emissions well below German federal safety limits. The system involves the use of "scrubbers" to reduce harmful elements which are created when the rubbish is incinerated. It produces salt and 13 megawatts of electricity which is fed into the public supply network and 17 megawatts of direct heating which is used to heat 4,000 households.

The midlands draft waste management plan is expected to cost £225 million over the next 15 years. Thermal treatment is an integral part of the plan although a site for the plant has not yet been identified.

By 2007, the plan aims to thermally treat 37 per cent of waste, recycle 46 per cent and reduce landfill to 17 per cent. There is also to be an environmental information officer to work with schools and businesses, advising on waste minimisation.

The recycling and reduction targets are to be met by the following methods:

a door-to-door recycling collection service in the main towns; extra banks to deposit recyclable goods; separate bins for organic waste which will be recycled using anerobic digestion or composting; 12 new civic recycling centres and a central material recycling centre to sort the door-to-door collection materials.

Three green/garden waste recycling facilities to be based in Portlaoise, Mullingar, and Nenagh.

Six sites to be identified for recycling construction and demolition waste, two transfer stations, and the involvement of the private sector in commercial waste recycling.