Pollutants in toxic waste dumps are to be made safe

Environmental pollutants in some 500 disused local authority and privately operated dumps are to be located and made safe, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has said.

The National Hazardous Waste Management Strategy, launched by the agency yesterday, envisages remedial work at old town and village dumps and sites of hazardous industries.

The work includes the incineration of hazardous waste pollutants in a new national hazardous waste incinerator. This will try to end the State's reliance on such facilities abroad.

The work is to be undertaken and funded by local authorities. The EPA said the action was necessary because there was little record of what hazardous waste was dumped at many locations. Agency personnel said yesterday, however, that because the State did not have a highly industrialised past, the danger from old dumps would not be as severe as in other countries.

Nevertheless, Mr Gerry Carty, of the EPA, told The Irish Times that the process would involve "risk assessment" at some 487 sites, including former tanneries, gasworks and local authority or privately operated dumps.

He said anecdotal evidence would be used, along with records of county councils and trade directories, to determine where hazardous waste could be found. Following the assessment of any pollution, remedial measures would be undertaken by local authorities in conjunction with the agency.

Estimates of how much the work is likely to cost the local authorities were not available yesterday as the extent of the problem is still largely unknown.

While the plan suggests the cornerstone of a management strategy should be prevention of waste, it accepts the safe disposal of the State's hazardous waste required a hazardous waste incinerator.

The plan lists some 17 licensed organisations which dispose of hazardous waste, not all of them through incineration, and reveals that a further 19 organisations have applied to the EPA for licences to dispose of such waste.

The plan also recommends encouraging the expansion and development of such facilities.

The National Hazardous Waste Management Plan has already been endorsed by the Minister for State for the Environment, Mr Dan Wallace. He has described it as a "national blueprint for action".

He said it recommended the "necessary infrastructure to attain national self-sufficiency in recovery and disposal".

Mr Wallace said in the absence of the strategy there would be a projected increase of 48 per cent in the levels of hazardous waste generated by 2006.