Dublin, and other areas, will have no waste disposal capacity within five years unless urgent action is taken, according to the Construction Industry Federation. Five or six waste incinerators should be built in the State as part of a radical new waste management policy, the federation has urged.
Dismissing as "simply ridiculous" existing waste policies, it called for a big increase in funding for waste projects and an end to the "not-in-my-backyard syndrome" which had obstructed development. "Virtually all waste infrastructure projects from the humble bottle bank to incinerators have been resolutely opposed by local communities and by other anti-development lobbies," it said.
"The protracted nature of our planning system and the cost incurred in the face of endless opposition is deterring would-be investors from a sector which is vital to the economic and environmental well-being of the State."
Progress was also being hindered, the federation claimed, by the fact that the State was divided into 10 waste regions. All operated independently of one another and had adopted the policy of refusing to take each other's waste, it said.
"On an island the size of Ireland, this is simply ridiculous and makes the possibility of implementing a strategic spatial approach to the provision of waste infrastructure virtually impossible. The quite bizarre situation is that it is legal to export waste from any Irish county for incineration in Germany, but it is illegal to take waste across a county boundary.
"We don't need 11 incinerators in Ireland but we certainly need five or six and we simply can't afford the luxury of saying, for example, that Galway waste can't be taken to Westmeath, or Longford waste can't go to Meath."
The level of investment in waste disposal, the federation added, was the most disappointing of all National Development Plan projects. NDP programmes had envisaged an investment of €825 million, of which €571 million would come from the private sector through public private partnerships, it said. This investment had failed to materialise, however.
A shortage of waste infrastructure and high disposal costs were now a deterrent to indigenous and inward investment, and were an effective constraint on economic growth, the federation claimed.
