Irish Independent - 07/01/06
Incinerator leaflet 'a load of recyclable rubbish'
Kathy Donaghy

THE PUBLIC information leaflet being distributed by incinerator company Indaver features a picture on the front with a load of rubbish for incineration - except everything in the bin can be recycled.

According to local politicians and environmentalists opposing the incinerator at Carranstown in Co Meath, the literature being distributed by the firm flies in the face of Government policy to 'reduce, reuse, recycle'.

The Indaver booklet, published to inform the public about their "waste-to-energy" facility, was described yesterday by a spokeswoman for the No Incineration Alliance as a "load of rubbish".

Anne Walsh said it seemed the plant developers would be happy to burn anything. "They're making fools of us all," she said.

On the front of the booklet, the company features various items in a bin, including a plastic fire truck, two lego blocks, a pair of runners, an empty soap dispenser, an old pizza box, packaging from a packet of rashers and tinfoil.

According to Ms Walsh, who is also an environmental scientist, if the Government put more emphasis on insisting that manufacturers only produced recyclable packaging, there would be no need to incinerate in the first place.

In relation to the plastic truck and lego blocks, Ms Walsh claimed that most plastics today could be melted down and recycled to make things like our black plastic bin liners.

She claimed the same could be said for the soap dispenser, as all these things were derived from petrochemicals.

"The runners could go to a charity like Enable Ireland as part of the re-use as well as recycle message. As for the pizza box, these are 100pc cardboard and they can be recycled. Cardboard is an organic matter originally from trees," she said.

Even the tinfoil, which she said was basically aluminium, could be recycled.

Ms Walsh said the bacon rashers packaging was a wax-type paper and there was no way to recycle this. However, she pointed out that if Government pressed for industry to only produce packaging which could be recycled, this would not be an issue.

"We are supposed to be cutting down. Incineration is the tail wagging the dog. We have to tackle the issue. There's lots of things we can do," the campaigner said.

Fine Gael environment spokesman Fergus O'Dowd said if it was the case that Indaver would be incinerating items that could be recycled, then that would be a "joke".

"If they have to burn something then it shouldn't be recyclable.

However, Indaver spokeswoman Jackie Keaney argued that no recycling company would take any of the items in the bin.

She said no recycling firm would accept recyclable material that had been contaminated and that the leaflet showed dirty tinfoil and a dirty pizza box. From the recycling firm's point of view, if there was between 5pc-10pc contamination of a load, it would reject the entire load, she said.