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Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 11 Mar 1997

Vol. 476 No. 2

Written Answers. - Waste-to-Energy Incineration.

Trevor Sargent

Question:

109 Mr. Sargent asked the Minister for the Environment his views on the statement made by the Danish Environmental Protection Agency that incineration is not seen as recycling; and his views on the position of leading environmentalists that long-term and dedicated programmes of recycling save more energy in the long-term than waste-to-energy incineration. [6858/97]

The Waste Management Act, 1996, consistently with EU legislation, classifies as a recovery activity the use of waste principally as a fuel or other means to generate energy.

A recent EU Council Resolution on the review of the Community Waste Management Strategy emphasises the need for promoting waste recovery, in particular by re-use, recycling, composting and recovering energy from waste. The resolution recognises, as regards recovery operations, that the choice of option in any particular case must have regard to environmental and economic effects. It considers that at present, until scientific and technological progress is made and life-cycle analyses are further developed, reuse and material recovery should be considered preferable where and in so far as they are the best environmental options.

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