Forfas concerned at Ireland’s high waste costs
Forfas, the national agency charged with developing enterprise in Ireland, says it is concerned about the effect of the high cost of waste management on the country’s competitiveness. Speaking at the launch of Forfas’s Waste Management in Ireland Benchmarking Report, Declan Hughes, the organisation’s competitiveness division manager, said that to improve the country’s waste management performance and ensure the provision of cost competitive waste management services to business, we need reduce the barriers to infrastructural investment, such as planning delays. He added that we also need to end uncertainty about the future direction of waste policy.

The benchmarking report, which measures Ireland’s performance against a number of comparator countries and regions, found that the advertised cost of landfill gate entry fees in Ireland was €132 per tonne in 2008. This compares to a cost of €127 in Sweden, €125 in Flanders (a region in Belgium) and just €73 in Scotland.

The costs in non-EU countries are considerably lower: just €31 in New Zealand and €38 in Massachusetts. However, the report cites a study by the consultant engineers RPS which found that reductions in the advertised rate can be negotiated. The market rate would appear to be around €110 per tonne.

Ireland’s bio-waste costs also top the table. At €80 per tonne gate fee for biological waste, Ireland’s costs are €10 more than the nearest comparator countries or regions, Denmark, Holland and Flanders. Costs in the Czech Republic are €15.

Among the measures proposed to tackle the challenges are:
  • certainty in the future direction of waste policy;
  • fast-track decisions on infrastructural projects, including the establishment of a specialist ‘Infrastructure Court’, modelled on High Court’s Commercial Court, to deal with large scale planning and construction cases;
  • no increases in landfill charges;
  • not to introduce an incineration levy or a cap on incineration until such time as adequate new waste treatment facilities are established. When charges are introduced, they should be lower than landfill charges.
 

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