In spite of spending the summer of 1995, with other Members, refining the Waste Management Act, the position regarding lax legislative control of the hazardous waste sector becomes increasingly worrying. Apparently the Department of the Environment is concentrating on developing measures to control packaging waste. Departmental staff are fully stretched in their efforts to bring this about, which is admirable. However, given the omissions, one cannot help worrying about the final outcome of their labours.
Some of this concern stems from knowledge of what has gone on since the Waste Management Act, 1996, was passed. The Act was introduced to enable us to come closer to European ideals on environmental protection. However, our strategy excludes decentralised solutions, even where technology exists. That is in clear defiance of the proximity principle in waste management given that, in many cases, technology exists to treat waste at source.
Sections of the Act have yet to be enacted. They control the transfer of waste to unauthorised persons and empower the High Court on the imposition of penalties and remedies in the event of a breach of the provisions of the Act. Furthermore, it is a framework document requiring local authority activity before it can be implemented. According to industry experts, local authorities have not yet taken steps to ensure the Act is enforceable. The inactive sections of the Act mean that a High Court does not appear to be possible in the event of a serious contravention of any of its requirements.
At present local authorities control the disposal of waste, including hazardous waste, in line with the European Communities (Waste) Regulations, 1979 (S.I. No. 390 of 1979) and the European Communities (Toxic and Dangerous Waste) Regulations, 1992 (S.I. No. 33 of 1992). They exclude animal, hospital, radioactive, sludge, mining waste and so forth.
Those regulations are many years out of date. Exclusion of various categories of waste from their provisions means that seriously dangerous substances can be sent for storage at landfill sites with impunity.
Hospital waste is specifically excluded from the provisions of the European Communities (Toxic and Dangerous Waste) Regulations, 1992. Industry sources confirm that it is possible for institutions to have hospital waste, potentially laden with even resistant bacteria or dangerous viruses, sent to landfill sites throughout the State. The recent crisis in the disposal of infected hospital waste has been an added incentive to those who seek to dispose of clinical waste in the most economical manner. Local authorities which knowingly accept waste from hospitals and nursing homes are accepting into ordinary landfill sites material which could place staff and the public at extreme risk now and into the future.
Municipal refuse workers are at greater risk of contracting hepatitis A and B infection than other members of the general public. With such loose control of infected waste disposal one wonders when more serious infections will become obvious. What kind of tribunal will be needed to apportion responsibility in relation to risk which could easily have been avoided?
It is not as though the quantities involved are limited. The Department of Health estimates chemical waste production as being around 4,000 tonnes. However, since the same Department has admitted that it is unaware of any waste audits having been carried out, one must rely on figures sourced elsewhere.
Industry experts, basing their information on the Price Waterhouse report produced for a Dublin waste disposal company and on their own activities in this area, place the quantity at anywhere between 9,000 and 13,000 tonnes per annum. Since the DHSS in Northern Ireland estimates its own production at about 4,500 tonnes per annum, it is unlikely that we would produce less than they would given that we have twice the population.
Lack of control of the disposal of hospital waste means that our clinical waste production is almost the same as that in the Netherlands, even though they have almost four times the population. Based on EU surveys in recent years, clinical waste disposal is at least 15 to 20 times more expensive than ordinary waste disposal. One wonders how we could be so lax in our controls as to produce so much at such a high cost.
There are, possibly, over 10,000 tonnes of infected materials being transported haphazardly, perhaps in unmarked vehicles, throughout the State. There are, possibly, hundreds of tonnes of infected materials being stored for collection, some of it in refrigerated food containers.
The Minister should welcome a debate on this issue and, at the very least, accede to a request for a meeting with the several experts who have remedies and the technology but who are excluded from the tendering process because of the centralised strategy being promoted by the Department in dealing with hazardous clinical waste. This needs to be changed.
