Written Answers. - Environmental Policy.
Michael D. Higgins
Question:
20
Mr. M. Higgins
asked the
Minister for the Environment and Local Government
the plans he has to review plans for the building of large scale incinerators in view of the recent warning from the United States Environmental Protection Agency on heightened fears concerning the toxic effects of dioxins; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
[18648/00]
The 1998 policy statement, Changing our Ways, recommended that local authorities identify and assess a range of waste treatment technologies, with a view to the development of an integrated waste management infrastructure appropriate to their particular circumstances.
Thermal treatment of waste, carried on in accordance with high environmental standards, is regarded as environmentally preferable to the disposal of waste by landfill, and plays a major part in municipal waste management in many EU countries, and further afield. Accordingly, Changing our Ways proposed that, where technically and economically feasible, and subject to appropriate attention to materials recycling, incineration with energy recovery or other advanced thermal processes are among the treatment options which should be considered in an integrated waste management strategy. That remains the case.
The United States Environmental Protection Agency, USEPA, has, since 1991, been engaged in a comprehensive reassessment of dioxin science, which it hopes to complete this year. Earlier this month, the USEPA published two chapters of its proposed report for the purpose of scientific peer review. In so doing, it cautioned that the material concerned should not be cited as the agency's final assessment of dioxin risks, and stated that the question of using the outcome of the reassessment for regulatory purposes does not arise until the review procedure is completed.
The USEPA now characterises the most toxic dioxin compound as a human carcinogen, and proposes to re-evaluate upwards its own 1994 assessment of cancer risk attributable to dioxins. However, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, an agency of the World Health Organisation, has since 1997 classed the relevant dioxin compound as a known human carcinogen. WHO guidelines for tolerable daily intake of and recommendations for dioxins, from 1998, take this classification into account.
The USEPA considers its draft findings are supportive of the WHO position.
Clearly, because of the potential toxic effects of exposure to dioxins, their emission must, where possible, be strictly controlled and minimised to ensure that exposure does not exceed relevant guidelines and standards. In licensing incineration facilities in Ireland, the EPA already applies a flue gas emission limit value for dioxins of 0.1 nanograms, that is one ten thousand millionth of a gram, per cubic metre of gas emitted. This extremely stringent standard will shortly be adopted by the EU generally, under the proposed Council directive on the incineration of waste. By comparison, dioxin emission standards issued by the USEPA last year, which will only apply to US hazardous waste incinerators from 2002, are between two and four times higher.
The European Commission estimates that the implementation of this directive will result in a 99% reduction in emissions of dioxins from waste incineration, relative to 1993/1995, and anticipates that the contribution of municipal and clinical waste incineration to overall emissions of dioxins in Europe would be reduced to 0.3%, assuming the output of other sources remains unchanged.
Overall, I am advised that emissions from proposed new thermal treatment facilities, employing modern technologies and subject to compliance with strict environmental standards, should not have any appreciable environmental impact or contribute significantly to background levels of dioxins locally or nationally.
