ONE OF the State’s largest private waste companies has said it will not deliver waste to the 600,000- tonne capacity Poolbeg incinerator if and when it is built.
Greenstar, which already controls 10 per cent of household waste and 90 per cent of commercial waste in greater Dublin, also says it will seek to take customers from Dublin City Council if the council sufficiently increases domestic bin charges.
The company does not intend to bring waste it currently collected, or any household or commercial waste it may gain control of in the future, to the Poolbeg facility, Greenstar commercial director Jerry Dempsey said.
“We have absolutely no plans to. We have our own technology and higher order recycling that sits higher up the waste management hierarchy . . . To be honest I think the incinerator is an obscene waste of public funds.”
The contract between the council and the developers of the incinerator, Covanta, contains a “put or pay” clause which requires the council to provide 320,000 tonnes of waste annually to the facility or pay a penalty.
However, Mr Dempsey said: “I think by the time the incinerator gets built the council will do well to have 190,000 tonnes of waste going through it.”
Due to the delays in the Poolbeg project, the city council has sought tenders from private waste companies to process about 300,000 tonnes of household waste annually collected in the city, Fingal and South Dublin county council areas until the incinerator is built.
The council has yet to announce the successful bidders for the contracts which will be worth up to €60 million, but Mr Dempsey has confirmed that Greenstar did submit a bid. Greenstar collects household waste in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown and Fingal.
