Statements on the National Waste Strategy - 14th February 2008

Statements on the National Waste Strategy - 14th February 2008
Senator David Norris: I welcome the Minister
of State to the House and express my good wishes
to the Minister for the Environment, Heritage
and Local Government, who I have just learnt is
unwell. This debate is important because it concerns
a crisis afflicting the globe. Underlying it is
the explosion in prosperity, and population
throughout the globe. Since I graduated from
Trinity College, and I am not as ancient as I might
appear, the population of the planet has doubled,
which is astonishing. Naturally, we generate more
rubbish, as we do when we become more affluent.
We have a significant job to do to educate people.
I used to teach and am glad to be associated with
An Taisce’s green flag award for schools because
it brings home to young people the necessity of
treating the environment with respect, sorting out
materials and recycling.
To digress to an allied area, I compliment the
city authorities of Dublin on the way they maintain
O’Connell Street. It is quite remarkable
because we are a filthy race and it must be heartbreaking
to have to continually clean that street.
Apart from other environmental aspects, the
street is one of the most significant public faces
of this country for tourists. My one caveat,
however is that the noise of the machines they
use is unspeakable. Sometimes this vibration
starts when they clean near my home, at 5.30 a.m.
or 6 a.m. at weekends. Is it possible to have a
more environmentally friendly machine doing the
environmentally friendly task? There seems to be
a conflict there. Why do they not also hose the
streets down with recycled, non-potable water, as
they do in Paris? I will not mention in too glorified
detail the kind of materials that hit the pavement
regularly every weekend in the inner city.
Many citizens demonstrate boorishness and an
utter lack of consideration. People come regularly
into my area in their motoring cars and unload
black plastic sacks of refuse, apparently because
they are too bloody mean to pay the bin tax. For
people who are significantly poor, a bin tax may
be an imposition. I, however, would be only too
pleased to pay it if the refuse collection system
were upgraded.
I and my neighbours regularly fill the green
sacks, which are an excellent idea given the
amount of paper that goes into them for
recycling. Why do we not have other sacks, for
plastics, tins and whatever else is possible? I
know that more than paper alone goes into the
green sacks but most people think of it as a place
for papers. It is astonishing to see the amount of
paper that one crusty old bachelor like me can
generate. I fill the sack every two weeks. I am
doing my best.
Although I live in the inner city I have a compost
bin but I cannot claim credit for that. Ours
is a very green house. The proprietor of the best
flower shop in Dublin, Adonis Flowers in Patrick
Street, Gerry, and his pal occupy my basement
apartment. Gerry does my window boxes and all
the recycling. When they move on, as they will
soon, I will continue this process because I have
begun to appreciate how important it is.
Senator Quinn raised on the Order of Business
the amount of paper waste generated in this
House but he was reticent because he mentioned
only the fact that the Order of Business comes in
a brown envelope. Would that was all. We all
receive stacks of reports that we do not want or
have time to read. Why not send them in electronic
format or send an abstract with bullet
points, on the basis of which we can decide
whether to request the full report, maybe electronically?
Why must we have a deluge of
reports? Sometimes I get three or four copies of
the same report from semi-State bodies. One
arrives here, then a back-up in case I did not see
it the first time, then two more at my home in
North Great George’s Street. It is maddening
because they are too big to get in through the
letter box and I receive a notice to call to the post
office which I do only to discover it is the third
copy of a report.
These are among the issues that face us as individuals.
As a country, however, we face a serious
situation, including fines from the European
Union because we are not meeting our targets.
By 2010 we have a good chance of being fined if
we do not really press ahead, not just with education
but also with implementation. The scale of
the problem is indicated by the fact that if we are
to meet our targets we must reduce landfill by
450,000 tonnes a year starting now. That is a significant
challenge. Some years ago various
Members, myself included, raised the issue of the
unlicensed dumps, the cowboy operators around
County Wicklow and how they could get away
with this when there were not sufficient penalties
against them. We must penalise these people.
As someone who loves the environment I naturally
revolt against incineration but we must
consider it. We do not need incinerators proliferated
all over the place but we will need some
degree of thermal treatment. I note that P.J.
Rudden, a leading consultant on waste management,
has stated it is absolutely necessary and
that with it, Ireland can handle up to 1 million
tonnes of waste per year, which would remove
what the Environmental Protection Agency has
described as the significant danger of fines from
the EU. He went on to assert that thermal treatment
is an inescapable and logical conclusion of
the report from the Environmental Protection
Agency.
I will turn to a paper from the Institute of
Public Health that is concerned with the impact
of hazardous waste on public health. In particular,
it raises some questions in respect of
breathing problems. It states:
Where no evidence can be found of a
relationship between adverse health effects and
proximity to incineration sites it is important to
bear in mind this may mean there is no
relationship or a relationship exists but may not
be detectable using available methods and data
sources. The fact that ill-health may occur
infrequently or take years to appear makes it
difficult to establish cause and effect. It is
therefore imperative the impact on public
health is adequately addressed.
My point is that this is pretty weak. It states there
is either little or no evidence at present of a connection
between incinerator emissions and such
respiratory difficulties. While it is important that
monitoring should continue, we cannot put a halt
to the development of at least a couple of major
incinerator sites, which must be carefully chosen,
on the basis that although sufficient data cannot
yet be found, that may be due to the lack of
sufficiently sensitive instruments to so do. In the
absence of such data, given the critical situation
we face, we must consider the possibility of incineration
although it may be politically unpopular.
Apart from anything else, the continued use of
landfill sites for hazardous waste in particular is
more dangerous to the general community.
A culture has arisen in which large quantities
of wrapping and rubbish are produced and I do
not like it. I find it offensive, vulgar, awful, tedious
and a nuisance and we should be educated
against it. In addition, I refer to the commerciallydriven
notion of planned obsolescence in which
things do not last. I recently was obliged to
acquire a new washing machine. I had called out
a plumber because its predecessor had developed
a bit of a leak.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach: One minute remains
to the Senator.
Senator David Norris: I thank the Leas-
Chathaoirleach. That will be enough to staunch
the leak. I called out the plumber, who charged
me approximately \60, and having examined the
washing machine, he told me I would be obliged
to get a new one. He asked me how long had it
been in my possession and to his amazement, I
replied that I had it for only 25 years. However,
I look after such things. I have a recycled car and
a recycled house and I wear recycled clothes I
inherited from my uncle. The refusal to have anything
that is recycled is awful. There should be
places in which one can buy recycled items or
where one can recondition things. Moreover, we
also ought to have far more opportunities to
recycle with deposit banks and so on.
There are some positive elements in this
regard. I am greatly relieved that dioxin levels in
Ireland are well below European Union limits
and long may they remain so. While levels in the
greater Dublin area may be higher than elsewhere
in Ireland, the general level is still less than
50% of the EU limit, which gives cause for hope.
However, I return to my earlier point that we
must face our commitments under the Kyoto Protocol.
It is worthwhile bearing in mind the recent
comments of Professor John Sweeney of NUI
Maynooth. I believe he also is the man who, some
years ago, got into trouble for saying we were a
bad neighbour in Europe, although perhaps I am
Ireland
has no friend left in Europe when you look
at the burden of distribution. The 20 per cent is a
signal that we misused the benefits we were given
under Kyoto”. Consequently, we must press
ahead and face some difficult and unpopular
decisions. It will be a major task to educate
people to recycle and, if necessary to bite the bullet
of incineration.