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PARENTS WILL MEET this evening to discuss their concerns about the controversial Poolbeg incinerator, which is in its first month of operations.
The group Parents Against the Incinerator will hear from speaker Paul Connett, a retired American professor of chemistry who has protested against incinerators in the US for years.
“It’s incredibly stupid,” Connett told TheJournal.ie ahead of the meeting, adding that setting up a huge incinerator near a built-up area is the opposite to the approach taken by many other European countries and US states.
“The people who put this up need to be going back to school,” he said. “I’m incredibly frustrated, but not as much as the people who have to live with the damn thing.”
The plant has come under fresh criticism in recent weeks after an unscheduled release of lime resulted in 11 workers being hospitalised at St Vincent’s.
The plant was closed and non-construction operations ceased. Three investigations were carried out in the aftermath of the incident.
The ‘dangerous occurrence’ put a more definite focus on the concerns of local residents, as the plant is located near three residential areas – Sandymount, Ringsend and Irishtown.
Locals had previously aired their concerns before the plant was built – which Dublin councillors voted against – but the decision was taken to permit the plant to help process the growing amount of waste from a rising population.
“[Is Dublin] the only city population that is growing? All cities are growing – that’s a pathetic excuse,” was Connett’s response, citing San Francisco’s approach to reducing waste by prioritising recycling and composting.
Connett has actively opposed incinerators in 49 US states, seven Canadian provinces, and 63 other countries. He says that protest efforts in the 1980s and ’90s have meant that just one incinerator has been built in the United States since 1997.
A spokesperson for Parents Against the Incinerator said they were “very concerned” about the health effects of the Poolbeg Incinerator, especially on children, based on international evidence in other areas of the world.
“We therefore ask that proper emissions monitoring is carried out, not only by the EPA but also by independent researchers.
“Dioxines and furans should also be monitored, being the most dangerous components of the emissions, and for which there is currently no monitoring plan.
We also want to send a message to Covanta as well as the government and the City Council that we are watching closely and are not passive in front of this.
The group plans to have follow-up events and meetings in the future.
Covanta, the company that runs the Poolbeg incinerator, says it is committed to demonstrate to the public and authorities that the plant is safe following the lime-leak: “We are actively working to prevent an incident like this from occurring again.”
Paul Connett will be speaking tonight at 7pm on the ‘Problems, Dangers & Alternative to Incineration’ on Sandymount Beach near Sean Moore Park, Dublin.
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The journal really needs to fück off with it’s hard on for danming articles about the incinerator. How about an article on what we’d otherwise do with the 600,000 tonnes of waste that will now create electricity and district heating.
@Keith Fealy: All hail the incinerator?
@Keith Fealy: people new to grow up
Incinerator s are used in most European cities
Burning rubbish and generating heat
@Keith Fealy: Do you really need to use such language? Not necessary to get what is quite a decent point across!!
@Cynical: I never knew that incinerators had parents, perhaps it is a throwaway remark…..
Down with that sort a thing, not near my house etc etc. Its a pity these career eco warriors are given a media platform where the real scientists, engineers are not.
@Donal Proctor: its funny the way people like to make fun of this blight on our country, if they could see the emissions from it they might be less flippant about its long term impact.
@Donal Proctor: incinerator was a lazy idea. Better idea would be anaerobic or aerobic digestors that would have used the rubbish to create electricity.
@Donal Proctor: yes because a Professor of Chemistry is not a real scientist.
@Nucky: the guy is a professional crank
@Shanners: the incinerator generates electricity…
Any chance someone can write an article about what we currently do with the 600,000 tonnes of waste that this incinerator will use to make electricity for us?
Also, any chance of a delete comment function for when the journal says your comment isn’t posted so you write a different one only to find out after that both comments were successfully posted?
@Keith Fealy: Jesus, anything else we can do for you? Coffee? Massage?
A bit late now for a meeting. However, is there anything to be said for another mass?”
@Keaneland: ah you cant beat a good long mass
@cp: a High Mass with all the trimmings..
@cp: in Latin to really bore the shit out of you
Complete with benediction yeahhhhhh
@Gus Sheridan: let’s get Father Alton Crosby to do it , He gives good Mass….
He really knows how to work the altar….
So they have hired a sandal wearing mouthpiece to try and get traction for their own nimby agenda. Incinerator should have been built 10 years ago but as usual; tools like Gormley put obstacles in the way to prevent it. Fine feat of Engineering; well done to all involved. Serial whingers would be happy if it was all buried in a whole down the country.
@Rusty Nuts: Don’t be slagging the sandals.
@Rusty Nuts: I went to see the guy in Cobh last friday. He was fascinating .He was quite smartly dressed as well.
So basically the group is saying it devalues our south Dublin homes. I’m surprised it ever got planning permission because of that very fact but it’s there now so either move out or get used to it.
Simple question about the tonnes of waste having to go somewhere: how about not producing so much of it? How about demanding that all unnecessary packaging is banned, giving shoppers the opportunity to just buy what they want in shops rather than rows of plastic boxes, double wrapped? How about for once working out how to reduce waste and dispose of it in the least damaging way?
This Paul Connett? so “respected” he has his own quackwatch page http://www.quackwatch.org/11Ind/connett.html
It be a homeless camp this winter to keep the homeless warm with any heat generated as Simon and Leo have ensured comptempt and more delays at the very least in FG response to our homeless epidemic.
@abcyz: What a snobby thing to say.
@Honeybadger197: No need for snobby sarcasm from you.
If it was on the north side there would be no one giving out
The real issue is the fact that we create so much waste that we had to build an incinerator to deal with it! The best way to protest would be for everyone to create less waste and starve the incinerator of fuel.
Incinerate the incinerator!!!
Fire it up and let it burn
A bit late in the day for this. Idiot parents more like.
And Drogheda had a mysterious pink cloud over it recently…
The air coming out of modern incinerators is incredibly highly regulated. The entire Idea of an incinerator is that 99.999% of the waste is entirely combusted removing all toxins. The air passes through several stages of filtration and purification and is far cleaner than what comes out of the exhausts of the millions of vehicles on the roads outside your house.
This chemistry professor is a charlatan who clearly either doesn’t know anything about these plants or is just stirring up controversy to fill his pockets.
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