Government waste management policy has been a disaster based on "bury and burn" rather than prevention and recycling, the Green Party claimed today.
Furthermore, Communities are having incinerators and superdumps "foisted" on them as a consequence, party leader, Mr Trevor Sargent said.
Mr Trevor Sargent
The Government has "turned the waste pyramid on its head" since coming into office seven years ago "reflected in the poor progress on key waste objectives contained in its 2002 waste policy document Preventing and Recycling Waste - Delivering Change", Mr Sargent maintained.
The Minster for the Environment, Mr Cullen, had effectively relaunched the objectives of the 2002 policy in April this year in the shape of a five-year plan without explanation, the Greens' leader continued.
"It would appear that the only kind of recycling in which Martin Cullen is interested in, is the cynical recycling of his waste policies," Mr Sargent said at the launch of a party policy document called Towards a Zero-Waste Society.
Mr Cullen is trying to convince the public that incinerators will magically make waste disappear but for every three tonnes of waste burned one tonne of ash is generated, he said.
The party's European Parliament Election candidate for Dublin, Ms Patricia McKenna, said a zero-waste strategy is gaining increasing support internationally.