The construction of the State's first hazardous waste incinerator came closer yesterday when Indaver Ireland, a Belgian company, lodged a planning application to Cork County Council to build the facility at Ringaskiddy on Cork Harbour.
With an annual capacity of 100,000 tonnes, it will cost £60 million to build and will treat hazardous and non-hazardous waste. It will generate enough electricity to power 12,000 homes and will be operational by 2005 if planning permission is granted.
Indaver will have spent more than £1 million by next year in a consultation process to allay concerns. The company has organised briefing sessions in Belgium for community groups in the harbour area, but so far the Ringaskiddy Residents Association, which is opposed to the incinerator, has refused to accept the invitation to travel to Belgium.
The association says Ringaskiddy and the Cork Harbour area have already been asked to accept too much industry within a relatively small perimeter, and that the roads system could not handle the extra traffic which an incinerator would generate.
Indaver says its plant will surpass existing European health and safety requirements and has pledged that if the Irish Environmental Protection Agency wishes, it will connect its monitoring system directly to the EPA's systems.
Mr John Ahern, the company's managing director in Ireland, said yesterday more than 60 per cent of the hazardous waste produced in the Republic was generated in the Cork area, and it was obvious it would have to become self-sufficient in waste-management.
A second planning application might be lodged in the future for a municipal waste-incinerator, costing £15 million, which would treat household and commercial waste from the Cork region.
"If both the industrial and municipal waste-incinerators were operational, they would dispose of less than 30 per cent of the non-hazardous waste produced in the region. This would leave 70 per cent of the non-hazardous waste available for other technologies, including recycling and composting and would ensure that pressure remains to increase recycling and waste minimisation. At present, Ireland recycles 9 per cent of its waste," Mr Ahern said.
Early next year Indaver will submit a waste licence application to the Environmental Protection Agency.
Landfill sites in the region are nearing the end of their productive life. Both Cork Corporation and Cork County Council have reduced the amount of commercial waste which can be accepted but have failed to agree on a joint waste-management strategy.