Poor Recycling Facilities in Cork - Why?
cork |
environment |
opinion/analysis 
Wednesday April 26, 2006 16:59
by Kathy Sinnott
To justify Indaver's incinerators?
I come from a long line of savers, women and men who believed that a rubber band or piece of string or jar lid should not be thrown away as it will come in handy some day. The fact that being a saver meant full drawers and stuffed shelves didn’t dissuade us, nor the fact that because of the clutter we couldn’t find the thing we saved when we finally needed it. Saving is ingrained. In our case, saving is almost genetic. Recycling was an easy concept for us. “Waste not. Want not” Recycling is just a more communal variation on saving with the advantage of no clutter.
Just like saving there is almost nothing that can’t be recycled. If there is something thrown away in our rubbish it is because someone has been lazy, which of course happens, or because there is nowhere in Cork to recycle that item yet. I was recycling in Douglas, a suburb of Cork, until January when the County Council waste recycling facility was opened in Rafeen. I knew where Rafeen was but learning the whereabouts of the facility was not easy. As I am geographically challenged and get lost easily I wanted to locate it before I loaded the boot of the car and set out. I tried the internet and phoning Cork County Council but ended up none the wiser.
Eventually I just set off and after a few tries found the new waste facility. It was well worth the effort, impressively neat and organized. Recycling on a Saturday afternoon in Rafeen is almost a social event. People chatting and visiting. Whole families busily going from glass to plastic to bottles and cardboard. Men and teenage boys examining the electrical appliance for spare parts
Despite facilities like Rafeen, Cork has not made recycling easy enough to become a key part to our daily response to waste. Having to load a car and drive to one of the centres puts recycling out of the scope of the majority of people who would otherwise be willing to recycle at their kerbside. In Brussels, householders buy colour-coded bags in their local shops. White garbage bags for rubbish cost several euros, blue, green and yellow recycle bags cost 5 cents. Both are left outside the front gate on their respective collection day.
Some Irish local authorities have developed kerbside collection and the people in those areas are building up a habit of recycling. We could do this if we wanted to. Do we want to or is the prospect of a major incinerator in Cork putting a damper on the development of widespread recycling?
Think about it. Toxic waste incinerators are hungry beasts. It takes a lot of non-toxic rubbish to keep the fires burning for the toxic stuff. So what would happen if Cork City and County Council got recycling levels up and produced less rubbish? A major incinerator would not be viable.
When Indaver first floated their proposals for a string of incinerators around the country they almost fooled the public into thinking that there was no other alternative to landfill. Recycling was something confined to glass bottles back then. But things have moved on. In opposing incinerators, we have educated ourselves and everyone around us on the alternatives of waste prevention and management. We’ve learned the three Rs. We now know a lot about reducing, recycling, recovering the resource we once thought of as rubbish. I suppose in fairness we should thank Indaver for that. If Indaver would accept our gratitude, take a bow and go away we could get on with the business of developing better wasteless, waste practices.
Comments (4 of 4)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4Indaver who promised they would respect the democratic decision in 2011 if they were refused planning and walk away, are intending to apply once again after a continuous contentious engagement of 15 years with Cork Harbour communities, who have spend almost half a million to stop an incinerator being built on a flooding and eroding site with a gaspipe alongside for good measure
Hundreds of millions of tax payers money and private funds is at risk of being wasted by Indaver's insistence and obsession with a totally unsuitable site purchased before the area now know as the Irish Marine energy research cluster (IMERC) was built upon. Now that area which is 25 meters across a road from the site is densely populated as it houses the National Maritime college (NMCI, the Beaufort Institute, which brings together UCC, CIT and the Irish Navy.
Indaver have always tried to direct our waste policy but ignoring the fact that now the location of a commercial incinerator makes no sense whatsoever, as it would not be centrally located to serve the new region of waste management.
We the public have educated ourselves in the sustainable ways of dealing with our waste in the last 15 years and the creation of thousands of jobs in recycling is a testimony to this.
Most of the time what we recycle is just dumped or processed elsewhere on the planet, usually by very poor people. Paper, aluminium and so on are probably worth recycling, as is glass, most plastics; however, are a very different matter.
Reduce and reuse are far more important and take precedence on the tri-hierarchy. Don't buy crap. Most of the time-except in the cases referred to above-recycling is glorified dumping.
The argument against Indaver is based on location, planning and infrastructure. It is insanity to even consider it as a location-and that is the opinion of many who are pro incineration.
7.4 billion consumers on the planet and nowhere to put our detritus!!!!!
The Proposed incinerator was supposed to be a national hazardous waste facility, and not a municipal one. Therefore, talk of recycling on a personal level is not the issue.
Incineration, that is burning, produces hazardous waste all by itself - ash -toxic and emissions, Sensitivity must be shown to communities who have concerns regarding their health, their safety, and their environment.
The experiences of communities around the country to date has led to genuine concerns about their ability to have their views taken into account when it comes to their protection.
The Strategic Infrastructural Act, rushed in during the Celtic Tiger era for fast planning, gives little protection to communities, who may have to deal with planning application after planning application, after planning application for a site that was judged not to be viable for a waste facility in the first place-(planning applications by Indaver, three in last 15 years for the same site.)
This is the situation in Ringaskiddy, where millions of tax payers money has been spent on an area within yards of the proposed incinerator site which Indaver's bought before any of the facilities were built, and which are now up and running. The National Maritime College of Ireland, the Beaufort Institute linking UCC and DIT and IMERC research center . HQ of Navy already existed.
The future plans for this area could never include a private commercial incinerator, how hard is that for John Ahern to accept. He could have saved Indaver and the Cork Harbour communities a lot of money if he had chosen an appropriate site, or moved on.
No means no. !!
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