New waste-to-energy incinerator possible to deal with the country’s growing river of waste

The government is looking at building a new waste-to-energy incinerator to deal with the country’s growing river of waste.

Ireland’s existing landfills and incinerators aren’t enough to handle the rubbish that its people are creating, the National Waste Management plan for 2024 to 2030 says.

So it is relying too much on exporting its waste, and that needs to change, the plan says.

“Relying on this level of export is neither sustainable nor complies with the principles of self-sufficiency and proximity and the analysis suggests the need for further treatment capacity within the State,” the plan says.

The new-ish government’s programme says it will “Assess the need for a new waste to energy facility and maintain a renewed focus on zero waste infrastructure.”

At a recent meeting of Dublin City Council’s climate action committee, councillors were briefed on the growing level of waste, and the national waste strategy, by Hugh Coughlan, coordinator for the Eastern-Midlands Regional Waste Management Office.

Green Party Councillor Donna Cooney said she was surprised there wasn’t more of an emphasis on reducing the amount of waste produced, and instead focusing on handling the increasing amount better.

“I just don’t feel the ambition is there,” Cooney said. “Because we’re just producing more and more waste to burn.”

Increasing levels of waste

The amount of waste has steadily gone up and up, and the projections show it continuing to rise, Coughlan’s presentation to the committee says.

According to Coughlan’s presentation, in 2020, the country produced around 2.75 million tonnes of municipal waste, that is waste from households or businesses. By 2024, it hit around 3.25 million tonnes.

Meanwhile, Ireland continues to miss its recycling targets, Coughlan’s presentation says.

The country has three active landfills, four cement plants that burn plastic as fuel, and two waste-to-energy incinerators, according to the national Waste Management Plan.

There is one incinerator in Meath, and another in Dublin, a sleek shiny facility by the iconic, retired red and white Poolbeg towers on Dublin Bay.

They collect waste from Meath and the greater Dublin area and burn nonhazardous waste at an extremely high temperature.

The waste “treatment” capacity Ireland has isn’t enough, Coughlan and the Waste Management Plan say.

Ireland is producing between 250,000 and 300,000 tonnes of waste that it can’t handle internally, Coughlan said.

That gets shipped abroad, primarily to the UK, the Netherlands, and Northern Ireland, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

But the plan is to change that.

“Ultimately, Waste to Energy will feature in the short to medium term,” Coughlan said. “Absolutely, it’s just a question of trying to improve the technologies in relation to those  so that we are getting the electricity and that we are getting district heating.”

As Ireland’s incinerators burn waste, they create electricity that’s turned into power for the national power grid. There’s also a plan to pipe heat from it to heat nearby homes and businesses.

Conor Walsh, technical director for sustainable waste management at the Irish Waste Management Association said that that industry group has supported the National Waste Management Plan.

And “The national plan points out that there’s need for another [200,000-] 300,000 tonnes of waste to energy in Ireland. We support the plan in that regard,” Walsh said.

A spokesperson for the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications (DECC) did not directly answer a query on the plan and timeline for the assessment promised in the programme for government of the need for a new incinerator.

The national Waste Management plan “sets out an overall policy and regulatory approach to support the development of adequate and appropriate treatment capacity at indigenous facilities to ensure that the full circularity and resource potential of materials is captured in Ireland”, the spokesperson said.

The spokesperson also did not directly answer a query on where in the country a new incinerator might be located.

A spokesperson for the Dublin City Council said that “The issues regarding location, timelines etc will be a matter for the potential applicant and the process would be subject to the normal planning and licensing considerations and approvals.”

Waste management company Indaver has proposed a waste to energy facility on Cork Harbour since 2004.

Second thoughts

Building another incinerator would help meet the national plan’s goal to keep the energy generated locally.

But for Social Democrats Councillor Lesley Byrne, who is on Dublin City Council’s climate committee, a new incinerator is not the answer. And she doesn’t think she’s alone.

“I would have some concerns that the waste-to-energy incinerator plans really just lock us into kind of unsustainable systems,” said Byrne. “It doesn’t really encourage a strong focus or investment on our ability to reduce waste or to reuse or for proper recycling.”

Incinerators require a steady supply of waste to be profitable, creating a perverse incentive to generate more of it, Byrne said. “So ultimately, there’s actually incentive there to create waste,” she said.

Instead, Byrne wants to see greater efforts to reduce consumption. For example, by discouraging wasteful practices like buying fast fashion.

“Teenagers, young people, in particular, buying like, huge amounts of clothes from companies such as Shein or Temu, in a way that would never have happened even five or 10 years ago,” said Byrne, who is also a school principal.

“So we’re, you know, our lifestyle is creating a lot more waste,” she said.

Fine Gael Councillor Clodagh Ní Mhuirí said she also wants to prioritise reducing waste and improving recycling.

And she would want to hear the details around the plans before she could say one way or another about a new incinerator, which she said, is at the very early stages and would be a significant project.

“If we’re going to make a decision on it we’ll need to have a lot more information on things like the location, the projected benefits, how much energy it would produce, how much waste would be processed there every year,” Ní Mhuirí says.

“But also the potential impact if any on recycling levels, what effect it would have on the area it’s proposed for, and any environmental impacts as well,” she says.

Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.