TD claims councils pick quiet areas for big dumps

The extent of opposition to landfill is pushing local authorities to seek "quiet locations" for the placing of new "superdumps", it has been claimed. According to the Green Party TD, Mr John Gormley, new dumps are being located in low-population areas to minimise public opposition and, therefore, political pressure.

Ironically, Irish waste management legislation was in parts extremely innovative and comprehensive, he said. The Minister for the Environment could ban or tax plastic bags at an instant, but waste was considered a problem rather than a raw material.

Moreover, it was facilitating the creation of "superdumps", he told a conference on landfill in Ennis, Co Clare, at the weekend. It was attended by groups opposed to landfill and recycling interests.

Mr Gormley said the implication was that landfill using "superdumps" was the popular option. There are currently 12 applications for such facilities, he said. This policy was about to be tied in with "waste to energy" - a euphemism for incineration - while waste recovery and minimalisation were "way down the list, not a priority" and considered not practicable despite the huge emphasis on it in almost every other EU state.

So far Irish industry had not played its part in embracing recycling though it committed itself to it in an attempt to avoid "green taxes", he claimed. The Dublin Waste Management Plan was "heading for incineration without proper reduce, reuse and recycle strategies". It was up to those opposed to this to "box clever" by putting in place binding air and water quality plans.

Delegates criticised the role of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and its lack of resources, while acknowledging its expertise and effectiveness in environmental education. The EPA was perceived as facilitating industry through industrial pollution control licensing. Some delegates feared the EPA would facilitate landfills when under pressure from local authorities insisting that cost factors make them the only option.

Prof Emer Colleran - a former national organiser with An Taisce - said the conservation body had argued that the EPA should not have a licensing role. With so much of its money coming from licensing, the emphasis was wrong. "It should set standards and step back," she told the conference, which was hosted by the Co Clare Green Party.

Local authorities had in the past selected landfills on the basis of being cheap and accessible, said environmental consultant Mr Jack O'Sullivan. A bog near a town, an old quarry, a low-lying piece of marshland, were typical of locations chosen in the 1960s.

Such thinking persists, he said, while Ireland was still living with the consequences of past decisions. "In many landfills there's no proper control of leachate, of landfill gases, and waste material is not even covered properly."

Authorities were taking "zero account" of EU policy on waste reduction at source, the packaging waste directive and strict targets for reducing biodegradable waste. "Rather than attacking the problem at source, local authorities are preparing to push for big landfills."

People were being told these new facilities would be better managed and better controlled. This may be "rationally OK", he said, but choosing to locate a landfill 1,100 feet on top of a mountain (as with East Limerick Landfill, proposed for the Slieve Felim mountains) fell into the category of the irrational.