Plans by local authorities to introduce pay-by-weight systems for waste collection may have to be refined because of cost, a high-level Irish study group has been told.
Pay-by-weight plans are currently being developed by many Irish local authorities, including Waterford City Council in the constituency of the Minister for the Environment Mr Cullen.
The scheme utilises weighing machinery fitted to standard bin lorries to weigh wheelie bins which are collected from outside houses.
Bills calculated on the weight of the refuse are then sent to the householder, whose identity has been established by a computer chip in the bin. Similar systems can be used for commercial waste.
The advantage of the pay-by-weight system is that it is increasingly seen as the fairest application of the "polluter pays" system and, like the successful plastic bag environmental tax, works by financially rewarding householders who reduce waste.
However, the system has had to be drastically remodelled in the Netherlands where a pilot scheme ran into trouble in the first year of operation - because it was so successful the bills sent to customers would not pay for the cost of the bin lorry service.
An overhaul of the system resulted in the charges being split into a flat annual fee which covers the costs of the service, and a fee, based on weight, for the refuse collected.
The service fee represents about half of the average annual bin charge. Householders are, however, able to reduce the remaining cost by creating less waste.
The adapted scheme results in householders having individual control over half of their refuse costs.
The Dutch experience was recently recounted to the high-level Irish study group which travelled to The Hague and Amsterdam to view waste management facilities there.
The group included the director general of the Environmental Protection Agency, Dr Mary Kelly, and Mr Tom O'Mahony, assistant secretary of the Department of Environment and Local Government.
Mr Eamon Markey, a principal adviser with the Department, and a number of local authority officials and public representatives also attended.
The group was told that a regional approach to waste management - in operation in the Republic - may lead to an over-capacity in the number of proposed waste incinerators.
Anti-incineration campaigners have pointed out that over-capacity would mean that material which would normally be sent for recycling would end up in incinerators because of the need to keep the furnaces - and energy recovery - going.
The Dutch, whose waste management systems are among the most advanced in the world, have introduced a moratorium on new landfills and extensions to existing landfills. They have also reduced the number of incongruities in recent years and achieved high levels of recycling aided by a number of environmental taxes.
Province-wide, regional waste management planning was introduced as far back as 1977, but provincial borders were opened up again in 2000 in favour of a holistic national waste management plan.
According to Mr Herman Huisman, of the Dutch National Waste Management Council, regional management plans which are too small threaten the viability of a waste-to-energy incinerator.
He said ultimately the ambitions of keeping the incinerator going may clash with the ambition to separate and recycle as much waste as possible.
The Republic currently has about eight regional waste management plans, with proposals for incinerators in some six of these.
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