With disputes raging over plans for incinerators and landfill sites, Ireland should be looking at other, more sustainable solutions, according to Prof Klaus Wiemer, one of Germany's leading experts in this area.
Prof Wiemer, who lectures at the University of Kassel and runs his own consultancy firm, endorses the Herhof Dry Stabilate process.
Ireland is at a critical point, he believes. It can either go ahead with current plans for "thermal treatment" (mass-burn incineration) of municipal waste or make a leap to a "new generation" technology. Prof Wiemer is a consultant to a joint venture waste company set up by property developers Treasury Holdings and the German firm, Herhof Umwelttechnik, to bid for a contract to treat Dublin's municipal waste.
Because the consortium's bid does not involve mass-burn incineration, it may not meet the terms of a brief being drawn up for the proposed tender.
P.J. Rudden, of consulting engineers M.C. O'Sullivan, who has been responsible for drafting most of the State's regional waste management plans, says he would be cautious about the Herhof process. "It hasn't yet got a track record, but it's something we should be keeping an eye on."
It was not one of the processes considered in the draft waste plan for Dublin, published in January, 1998; in fact, it wasn't mentioned even though the first Herhof plant in Germany had been commissioned in 1997. Mass-burn incineration was the only real option.
One of the arguments used by environmentalists opposing incineration is that it requires a constant supply of waste to "feed", thereby acting as a disincentive to recycling. And while the Dublin waste management plan aims for a 50 per cent recycling rate, few of them believe it.
By contrast, the Herhof process does not need to be "fed" 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It also produces a dry, refuse-derived fuel (RDF), which can be used as an industrial fuel source.
One of Mr Rudden's concerns is that there may be no market in Ireland for the fuel. But Kevin O'Sullivan, former Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown county manager and now a consultant to Treasury Holdings, said they were "very confident" of finding a market for Herhof's RDF.