Kildare food firm tops ranking for odour complaints

The food processor Arrow Group has topped the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) ranking for numbers of odour complaints in 2014.

Arrow Group, which is based at Maudlins Industrial Estate in Naas, Co Kildare, also featured in the list of the top five sites with the most noise complaints.

The group includes Dawn Farms, International Meat Ingredients, QK Meats, Simply Soups and Pasta Concepts.

It has has a daily capacity of more than 75 tonnes of processed food. Efforts to contact the company for comment were unsuccessful.

Food and drink sector

The EPA, which monitored the air emissions of more than 750 licensed sites across

Ireland

, said waste management activities had historically been the major source of complaints.

However, it said the food and drink sector now accounted for 64 per cent of all odour complaints and 40 per cent of noise complaints.

The report, Licensed Sites – Report on Air Emissions 2014, found there were 788 complaints in relation to odours from licensed sites.

It noted 149 noise complaints, with 80 per cent relating to five individual sites: Nurendale, which trades as Panda Waste, at Rathdrinagh, Co Meath; the Cooley Distillery in Co Louth; Rosderra Meats in Edenderry, Co Offaly; Arrabawn Co Operative society in Nenagh, Co Tipperary; and Arrow Group.

The EPA said nearly all firms complained about were in breach of their licence conditions.

In the list of the ten most-complained-about firms for odours, just Dawn Meats of Charleville, Co Cork, and Thornton's Recycling in Dublin were found to be compliant with licence conditions.

Licence

Nurendale was the only one of the top five firms ranked by noise complaints compliant with its licence conditions.

Three firms were prosecuted under environmental legislation in 2014, according to the report. Oxigen Environmental, Dundalk, Co Louth was ordered to pay €9,000; Irish County Meats of Navan, Co Meath, was ordered to pay €10,439, while meat producers Dublin Products of Dunlavin, Co Wicklow, was ordered to pay €8,643.