Seanad debates

Wednesday, 5 November 2003

Waste Management: Statements (Resumed).

 

Dioxins are often the focus of concern when we talk about thermal treatment plants. The Government does not use the term used by Senator Ormonde. It is important to realise that if within the next seven years we reached the stage of treating a million tonnes of waste thermally, the level and quantity of dioxins that such waste would release would be no more than about 2%. The levels from the burning of domestic waste could be over 30 times higher. It is important that we air these facts and the minute quantity of dioxins that might be released by certain projects. I was in a part of my constituency last Saturday afternoon, 20 hours after the Hallowe'en bonfires, and the air was thick with smoke. People complained that certain business people delivered truck loads of waste for which they should have been paying or getting a waste licence to put into the landfill. Instead, they were tipping it out for the children who thought that Christmas had come early. The quality of the air 20 hours afterwards was awful.

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