County managers in the south-east are determined there will be no delay in implementing a waste management plan which includes the thermal treatment option - incineration being the favoured word of opponents, writes Chris Dooley
The managers have already held their first meeting to move the plan forward since it was adopted by Waterford and Wexford County Councils last month.
The other four local authorities in the region had voted earlier to back the plan, which includes a proposed incinerator in a location yet to be decided.
Mr Jimmy Harney, the senior executive officer in charge of waste management at South Tipperary County Council, said it would take "five or six years" before the incinerator was up and running."But we need to start the process now as there are lengthy planning procedures to go through."
South Tipperary council is the "lead authority" charged with seeing that the 20-year plan, designed to cater for the 300,000 tonnes of waste produced in the region each year, is delivered on schedule. Its promoters, unhappy with what they perceive as a media fixation with incineration, stress there is much more to the plan.
Its proposals include a three-bin collection service for all urban households by 2008, a two-bin system in other areas, home composting to reach maximum levels by 2007, "bring centres" for recyclable materials at a minimum density of one per 1,000 population by 2005 and a network of recovery facilities.
Funding is now being sought from the Department of the Environment.
Overall it is proposed that 57 per cent of the region's waste will be recycled or recovered, 34 per cent will go to incineration and the residual 16 per cent to landfill. (This exceeds 100 as some material going to landfill will have been through other processes.)
Incineration, however, remains the major talking point in a region where there are three highly-organised groups campaigning against this form of waste disposal. The facility is to be operated through a public-private partnership and, ultimately, the location will depend on whatever proposals emerge from the private sector, Mr Harney said.