Meath County Council has voted to adopt a waste management plan for the north-east region drawn up by consultants MC O'Sullivan. During the debate yesterday, councillors were told that the plan, covering counties Meath, Monaghan, Louth and Cavan, was not being changed in any major way following submissions from the public.
Ms Jean Clarke of MC O'Sullivan said a questionnaire sent to each household in the four counties had indicated that 93 per cent agreed with the proposals, which include reducing the dependency on landfill to 18 percent. Dependency on recycling is to reach 43 per cent, with 39 per cent being thermally treated. Ms Clarke claimed these targets were in excess of those set down by the EU and Government.
There is no decision yet on the form the thermal treatment of waste will take but thermal incineration is being examined. The response to the questionnaire was criticised by Cllr Jerry Gibney. He said that 1,520 completed questionnaires represented less than 1 per cent of the estimated population of 300,000 in the North East.
However, Ms Clarke said it was a voluntarily-returned questionnaire and was confident people were in favour.