Only ten local authorities have sufficient licensed landfill space to cope with the expected volume of public waste this year. It is a frightening figure and reflects a succession of failures at Government, administrative and community levels.
Elected representatives and public officials have failed to take the necessary, tough actions to provide for an increasing amount of waste, while ordinary citizens have continued to generate mounds of rubbish while refusing to accept responsibility for its treatment.
This is not a new problem but it is now reaching critical proportions as existing landfill sites reach saturation and aggressive, local campaigns prevent new ones being opened. Alternatives to landfill, such as recycling, re-use and incineration, have been debated for years. But not a single incinerator has yet been built, even though the State has spent billions on encouraging the development of a modern industrial base.Thousands of tonnes of animal carcasses are in cold storage awaiting incineration, arising from last year's BSE slaughter-for-destruction scheme. Progress on recycling has been painfully slow. In an attempt to push things along, the Department of the Environment will announce substantial grants for recycling initiatives within the next few months.
That is the legal side of things. The scandal of unlicensed, toxic dumps in Wicklow and elsewhere represents a darker side of the problem. The illegal disposal of toxic and hazardous waste has been going on for decades and, by and large, officialdom appears to have turned a blind eye. Such an approach became unsustainable as the EU Commission insisted that anti-pollution regulations should be applied. Three years ago, this State produced an estimated 370,000 tonnes of hazardous waste and exported about 140,000 tonnes of it. The rest of it went into the ground or into waterways.
A series of articles in The Irish Times today gives an indication of where things stand under this Government. It is a sad catalogue of failure. Much was promised by the Coalition. Very little has been delivered. The unwillingness of local authorities to adopt waste management plans was a major inhibiting factor. There was also Ministerial reluctance to take unpopular decisions. We cannot afford further delays.