MINISTER FOR the Environment John Gormley’s policy on waste incineration has “no underlying rationale” and is likely to impose “needless costs on the economy”, according to the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
A report to be published by the institute today says the Minister’s policy to set a cap of 30 per cent on the incineration of municipal waste could damage Ireland’s reputation as a place to do business and “will thus harm economic development and competitiveness”.
The report, An Economic Approach to Municipal Waste Management Policy in Ireland, says the cap on incineration “may well be effective”. It would result in more waste being diverted to landfill, thereby making it “much harder and more costly” to comply with the EU landfill directive.
“Arbitrary limits on incineration and consequent expansion of MBT [mechanical and biological treatment] have no place in waste management policy,” it says, disputing Mr Gormley’s contention that his new policy would create jobs and improve competitiveness.
The ESRI report, commissioned by Dublin City Council, also claims that the recent international review of waste management practice – carried out for the Minister by consultants Eunomia – was “severely flawed” in setting its recommended levies for residual waste. Although it put forward “some sensible general principles” for guiding policy, the review “must be considered a failure” in terms of “setting residual waste levies, per capita targets for reduction in residual waste and guidance on the appropriate mix of waste technologies”.
A central recommendation, the ESRI notes, is “the setting of the residual waste levy for landfill, incineration and MBT, in terms of euro per tonne. Here, the international review completely fails to explain how its proposed levy structure was derived from the underlying research”.
While favouring MBT, the review was “completely silent” on the issue of its merits over incineration. “The practical problems of switching from incineration to the MBT, such as stranded assets if a 30 per cent regional cap on incineration were introduced are not addressed.”
This is a reference to the fact that two waste incinerators are now under construction – one at Carranstown, Co Meath, which will have a capacity to process 200,000 tonnes a year, and the other at Poolbeg, in Dublin Bay, with a capacity of 600,000 tonnes.
The latter is a joint venture involving Dublin City Council and a private consortium led by US waste management company Covanta, with Danish firm Dong Energy as a minority partner. A contract for this €350 million “waste to energy” facility was signed in October 2007.
Paul Gorecki, lead author of the ESRI report, warned yesterday that compensation would have to be paid if the Poolbeg project did not proceed. All regional waste management plans would also have to be changed to favour MBT “for reasons that are not at all clear”, he said.
Though jobs would be created in building MBT plants, “we must ask at what cost, given that these resources could have been used to create jobs elsewhere and that the MBT facilities will to a considerable degree be replacing incinerators that are or were to be built shortly”.
The ESRI’s “road map for municipal waste policy” recommends the introduction of a “cap and trade” system to meet the EU landfill directive targets for 2013 and 2016 as well as the imposition of levies for municipal waste, depending on the method of waste disposal.
Under the scheme it has developed, all reflecting their environmental costs, these would be charged at €44.24 to €54.89 per tonne for landfill, €4.22 to €5.07 per tonne for urban incineration, €0.42 to €0.50 per tonne for rural incineration and €0.92 to €1.45 per tonne for MBT.