Incinerator being built in Rathcoole-Dublin

[Billsthoughts]

Gormley and Ryan held meetings with the company reponsible for this.
http://www.independent.ie/national-n...y-1426003.html

[Macy]

Before his shambolic performance in Government so far, I would've had a fair amount of time for Gormley (on reflection his going up against McDowell could've been the real reason he seemed competent and reasonable).

However, he's displayed gombeenism of the highest order over incineration. I'd be concerned in Rathcoole that he would try and shift out the incinerator there instead of Poolbeg. Dublin has to start dealing with it's own waste, and much better a location that has the prevaling wind away from the city rather than one on the western edges.

[Billsthoughts]

I would have thought the Greens would have been opposed to the idea of these things totally.
Seems a bit strange to have it out that way with the dump up the road in Kill.
According to the website of the anti incinerator group they have stopped building anymore of these in the US.

[Macy]

Personally, I think Incineration is the lesser of the two evils compared to landfill. Living close to a landfill that has just been purely soil* from the Dublin building sites has been a right pain in the arse, I could only imagine what it would be like if it was stinking rubbish too.

*well supposedly. You wouldn't think Wicklow County Council is still trying to sort out illegal dumps from the 80's and 90's with the complete lack of enforcement of all these type of sites.

[monutdfc]

In hierarchy of waste management, incineration is second from bottom with landfill at the bottom. (Off the top of my head, the hierarchy is
reduce - re-use - recycle - *** - incineration - landfill
where *** denotes emerging technologies such as biomechanical treatment, mechanical heat treatment etc but I am not aware of any of the new technologies being commercially operational yet.)
So yes, it is more desirable than landfill. Levies and grants should be designed to incentivise waste operators to move up the hierarchy as much as possible.
There are three main problems with incineration. Firstly, the crap in the smoke - heavy metals, dioxins etc. The scrubbers in modern plants should be able to clean most of these out, but still none of us would like to live next to one. Secondly, and this gets less exposure, is the ash. This contains the same heavy metals etc and still needs to be disposed of. There was a huge public health problem in the Byker area of Newcastle (yes, Byker Grove!) where the ash residue was used to landscape a public park. Thirdly, a huge problem is push-and-pay contracts, where local councils must pay penalties if they don't provide enough rubbish to the incinerator. Thus there is no incentive for them to move up the waste treatment heirarchy as they are financially penalised for doing so.

Waste management is a huge problem in modern society, and incineration and landfill are, unfortunately, part of the "solution" whether we like it or not. Of the two incineration is the lesser evil, but it still brings huge problems. Greens cannot change modern life completely overnight, and so must look at how best tackle the waste problem rather than a blanket opposition to incineration.

[Macy]

Greens cannot change modern life completely overnight, and so must look at how best tackle the waste problem rather than a blanket opposition to incineration.

This is my problem with Gormley - he doesn't have blanket opposition to incineration, just to it in his consituency. Makes him no better than a Healy-Rae. Not too many Green votes in Meath, and Gogarty's a dead man walking politically anyway given his nonsense response to that councillor joining FG.

[monutdfc]

This is my problem with Gormley - he doesn't have blanket opposition to incineration, just to it in his consituency.

I'm not his biggest fan, and to an extent your criticism is valid. But in fairness to Gormley, he's between a rock and hard place on that one. Every candidate in the constituency opposed the Poolbeg incinerator. It was an election issue. In fact, there's not much he can do about it, because he has not got direct control over Dublin City Council. But he still has to listen to Lucinda Creighton bleating on about it (rich coming form FG whose environmental policies are non-existent.) So he has to talk the talk over it when he knows there's little he can do about it. But he is still (rightly) fighting over the "push and pay" nature of the contract.

[Macy]

But he still has to listen to Lucinda Creighton bleating on about it (rich coming form FG whose environmental policies are non-existent.) So he has to talk the talk over it when he knows there's little he can do about it.

Just as he did to McDowell, though, which is why he's really getting on my tits. He doesn't like the opposition actually doing it's job, when in fairness he was quite good when he was at it.

I don't disagree about the push and pay contracts, and I don't think anyone would disagree that we should be recycling more. We need more proper bring centres (that include plastics), and a major problem we have is the bins not being emptied often enough at the bring centres. There are also issues as to where the recycling goes. Also, there seems to be very little done to tackle the waste at source - everything is targetted at consumers, little at the producers.

[pete]

I think the Greens are doing ok in government but they have had to become more pragmatic & realistic on some issues. Blanket opposition does not in the real world. I thought the Greens were completely opposed to incineration? I have never felt that is a realistic option as we can aim to reduce & reuse but will take long time to get to 100%.

[Macy]

I think the Greens are doing ok in government but they have had to become more pragmatic & realistic on some issues.

I don't think Gormley's done much that wouldn't have been done anyway - the VRT changes were in the pipeline to get around it being illegal anyway. I've been very disappointed in Ryan, especially over broadband and we're still very slow on DTT.

Really I think they've settled in too well, and basically I don't think they bring anything different to their ministeries than a random FFer would've. No major policy changes, no innovation, no feckin change.