Opposition to the building of an incinerator in the south-east is growing, judging by the turnout at a public meeting last week addressed by an American campaigner on the issue.
More than 600 people were present at the Tower Hotel in Waterford to hear Dr Paul Connett, Professor of Chemistry at St Lawrence University in New York, say that siting an incinerator locally would change the whole character of the area, posing dangers to agriculture, tourism and human health.
"I find it shocking that nobody in Ireland has bothered to find out why in the United States we have stopped over 300 trash incinerators from being built. Why is it so unpopular? Why has no incinerator been built in the United States since about 1996? How come they've not built an incinerator in Canada for 12 years?"
"It is extraordinary to me that these kinds of questions are not being asked."
Dr Connett claims that incineration is an experiment which after 20 years has left citizens of industrialised countries with a legacy of unacceptably high levels of dioxins and related compounds in their food, their tissues, their babies and in wild life. Instead of spending millions of pounds on making incinerators safer, he argues, we should be finding ways to avoid making waste in the first place.
He urged those present to lobby politicians about the dangers of incineration and "make their lives miserable". However, Mr Micheal O Cadhla of the Waterford/Kilkenny Incineration Study Group, which organised the meeting, said the group wished to work with local politicians rather than against them.
Five out of six local authorities have already adopted the South East Regional Authority's waste management strategy, which includes a proposal to site an incinerator in an area in south Kilkenny, east Waterford and west Wexford known as the SKEWWW box. Wexford County Council has yet to vote on the plan.