Incinerator Expansion for Meath now with 60 Meter Smoke Stack Draws Green Ire

It seems a happy coincidence that last week John Gormley announced national capacity for waste incineration in 2016 would be 400,000 tonnes and only two plants and today An Bord Pleanala give Indaver permission to increase the capacity of the Meath project and bring the capacity of their two plants in Cork and Meath up to the level he intimated. This includes a most eyecatching 60-metre stack to be built in Meath (no smart comments about the place now being a dump).

Not to mention last week Gormley was being canned for doing a u-turn on incineration. Cannot wait to see the press releases from the opposition on this one.

Edit: As if on cue. “The Green party used to wear sandals. Now they seem to prefer flip-flops!”.

(2) Not to be undone, the Green’s Louth Councillor Mark Dearey has condemned the decision, Greens taking notes from FF on how to be their own opposition;

“While acknowledging the Bord’s independence in these matters and the fact that they can only make decisions in accordance with the existing waste management policy they have clearly taken no account of the recent announcements on incineration issues made by Environment Minister John Gormley since in his appointment in June.

“There are better ways of dealing with waste. These previous Government’s waste management regulations were essentially drawn up late in the last century.

“Since going into Government the Green Party has succeeded in changing the direction away from incineration and into sustainable waste recovery methods and it is our intention to maintain this course despite today’s decision. For instance, by ruling changes to landfill levies that would favour incineration we have taken away much of the commercial incentive to build incinerators.