WASTE: One of the most intractable issues facing the new Minister for the Environment, Mr Cullen, is waste management. Whatever progress is made on waste prevention, minimisation and recycling, there will always be a residue requiring final disposal, writes Frank McDonald Environment Editor.
The Agreed Programme for Government explicitly opposes "mass-burn incineration, with no energy recovery", saying it is "not an acceptable practice today" - although nobody had seriously suggested the thermal treatment of municipal waste without generating energy.
Fianna Fáil was persuaded to go along with the PD line that thermal treatment using best available technology "must be based on prior extraction from the waste stream of recyclables and problematic materials (e.g. metals, batteries) to the maximum extent possible". This may be seen as an endorsement of the German Herhof process, being promoted here by Treasury Holdings Ltd, under which all types of recyclables are extracted from municipal waste and what's left is turned into RDF (refuse-derived fuel) to fire cement kilns, for example.
But whatever the process, it is clear that no community is prepared to tolerate a waste disposal facility as a near neighbour. Alhough waste prevention efforts are to be both "ambitious and well-resourced" and weight-based charges introduced to encourage more recycling, the programme says nothing about compensating communities for having to put up with waste disposal facilities.
One of the acid tests of the new Government's resolve will be the speedy establishment of the Office of Environmental Enforcement and how it performs in tackling unscrupulous waste contractors and others who damage the environment.