Privately-owned incinerators will not be accountable to the public because the Government will not monitor them, it was claimed last night at the Green Party conference.
Ms Siobhán Nevin, a local election candidate in Tuam, claimed that such incinerators would operate without standardised safety procedures.
There was no such thing as a safe incinerator, she added.
Urging greater use of recycling, Ms Nevin said that "tetrapack" packaging of drink products should be phased out and called for the reintroduction of reusable glass milk bottles.
She was speaking during a session titled "a vision for the west" during which the reinstatement of the western rail corridor and demands for a Co Galway commuter rail network were also discussed.
While Ms Nevin said that 51.5 per cent of all waste in Galway city was currently diverted from landfill sites, she said that two new super-dumps were planned in Kilconnell and New Inn in Co Galway.
This left residents with a sense of entrapment, worried about health risks, but unable to sell their homes.
Such dumps would be at risk from explosions where gases were forced underground, Ms Nevin said.
"There is a further worry that because the dumps are being forced on communities there is nothing to stop the Government forcing an incinerator on them in the future or enlarging the dumps."
She said the burning of hazardous waste, even in the most modern incinerators, released dangerous pollutants into the environment.
With the Greens due to discuss a motion at the conference on Sunday to make the reinstatement of the western rail corridor a condition of entering a future coalition government, the conference heard a call for a commuter rail service which would link Galway with Tuam, Athenry, Oranmore, Gort and possibly Ennis.
Mr Kieran Cunnane of Galway city Greens also said the option of extending such a network to Ballinasloe and New Inn should be examined.
Calling for a two-hour express rail journey between Dublin and Galway, he said the current service was only about 35 minutes faster than in 1895.
Mr Cunnane also called for the development of two priority bus corridors which he said could go around Galway and seven radial routes to the towns of Barna, Moycullen, Claregalway and Oranmore.
"We need to think big, and think ahead in line with predicted local and regional growth," he said.
