County councils dumping illegally
national |
bin tax / household tax / water tax |
news report 
Monday March 01, 2004 11:24
by Axe man
Slow boat to India - Irish Solution to an Irish problem
In the latest leg of the race against waste, it transpired that your service charge money is being used to ship waste to India, illegally. Sorry about the cut and paste (IT - pay per view) but I thought somebody in the Fingal anti-bin tax campaign might have covered it. I suppose they were too busy watching the SF Ard Fheis.
Belgians to ship back 1,000 tonnes of illegal waste to Ireland
The Belgian authorities are to ship back to Ireland 1,000 tonnes of illegally-exported waste intercepted in the port of Antwerp. It was destined for India.
The rubbish will be shipped out of Antwerp on Thursday week, March 11st, the Belgian Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) told The Irish Times yesterday.
Five local authorities supplied the rubbish: Waterford, Galway, Fingal and South Tipperary County Councils and Limerick City Council.
With Ireland as EU president, the Minister of the Environment, Mr Cullen, is to preside at an EU Council of Environment Ministers when it discusses ways to tighten rules on the shipment of waste next Tuesday.
Some 56 containers of Irish waste were being shipped to India when they were impounded by the Antwerp port police.
The police had been put on alert after 900 tonnes of waste from Ireland had earlier been stopped in Rotterdam.
What makes the shipments illegal is that they contained dirty unsorted household waste. Only uncontaminated, separated waste can be shipped from one EU country to another without prior agreement. No such permission had been given for the Rotterdam and Antwerp shipments.
Mr Marc Leemans, an inspector in the Flanders Waste Disposal service, said the 56 containers arrived at Antwerp over two weeks.
The EPA said: "There are a number of shipping companies involved - CVB Ecologistics, Beciss International, Freight Solutions and Derek Horner Agencies Ltd."
Mr Leemans said the papers accompanying the containers described their content as old paper, which did not, under existing rules, require prior authorisation.
Comments (8 of 8)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8Misleading, Axeman. Understand waste movement before you make such an inaccurate posting. The materials are not necessarily from the counties named and it is too early to say whether any originated from Dublin green bins (which will come as a big dissappointment to you). What it means so far is that the materials originated from FACILITIES within those counties boundaries. The material itself may have been collected in other counties but have been processed in the named counties before shipment. The regulations provides that it is the local authority from where they were exported that should be the "competent authority" in the case of a problem ie. they should be informed of movements of certain types of material and they investigate and/or prosecute in the case of problems like now.
The defining issue here is whether this is WASTE which was going abroad for disposal or MIXED RECYCLABLES going abroad for processing.
Ok Paper - Does'nt REFUSE ink
I found it hard to understand your council speak. Care to comment on which one of these sentences are Incorrect. If the answer is none then then my heading was correct.
Belgians to ship back 1,000 tonnes of illegal waste to Ireland.
The Belgian authorities are to ship back to Ireland 1,000 tonnes of illegally-exported waste intercepted in the port of Antwerp. It was destined for India.
Five local authorities supplied the rubbish: Waterford, Galway, Fingal and South Tipperary County Councils and Limerick City Council.
Some 56 containers of Irish waste were being shipped to India when they were impounded by the Antwerp port police.
The police had been put on alert after 900 tonnes of waste from Ireland had earlier been stopped in Rotterdam.
What makes the shipments illegal is that they contained dirty unsorted household waste. Only uncontaminated, separated waste can be shipped from one EU country to another without prior agreement. No such permission had been given for the Rotterdam and Antwerp shipments.
Mr Leemans said the papers accompanying the containers described their content as old paper, which did not, under existing rules, require prior authorisation.
(a) Don't be so touchy, Axe man and (b) I don't work for a Council!
In fairness to you, it is the original statement which is misleading. It is ambigous for it to say that the material was "supplied" by the Councils. What can only be said with certainty at this stage (and what I suspect is actually meant) is that the material was exported from private facilities BASED within these Councils admnistrative areas. The material itself could be from anywhere within Ireland having being sent to these facilities for processing.
It would not appear ambiguous to say that the material was supplied by the aforementioned council (as long as they were indeed the councils with administrative control over the facilities which forwarded the waste). It might not be correct to say that the waste originated in those areas but if the waste was forwarded by facilities under their administration then it would make perfect sense to say that these councils supplied the waste.
What is more im[portant is the nature of the waste and why it was being transpoerted to India (do we dump all the shit that we won't allow to be disposed of here on countries that have less stringent environmental regulations for whatever reason. This stinks of hypocrisy of the highest order.
i think ye have missed the main point here.
basically, local authories have bullied their way into forcing people to accepting bin charges by spinning the line that wasye would be recycled and hence they said the householders must seperate the waste,
surely this highlights that perhaps the local authorities bundle all the waste together after household seperation.
the government spin of waste against waste is just a lie and a farce.
Todays 'Irish Independent has a sorry tale of incompetence ,lawlessness ,and greed. relating to the bin and rubbish stealth taxes ruthlessly imposed on the working class people of our cities and countryside.
The shocking- if excellent- article in the Irish Independent(saturday/6th) by Treacy Hogan,entitled’the gangster waste operators who are dumping on our future’,- highlighting the widespread illegal dumping of domestic and toxic industrial waste throughout the country in places as far apart as Wicklow and Cavan,is yet another indicator of just how busy the elected councillors and T.D.’s of the present government have been in recent years.
Preoccupied with lining their pockets ; rezoning lands for their cronies;and sanctioning ‘one off houses’ in every beauty spot in the land ,-It has passed their notice that a vast organized Mafiosi/waste industry exists in all their backyards.
While they are now busy trying to screw both industry and householder alike for ‘rubbish’ revenues/stealth taxes etc. for purposes completely unconnected with waste disposal and to keep to keep their prodigiously wasteful ship afloat in government;-their intended victims in the industrial waste business are circumventing the charges and flouting the law with total impunity.
Ordinary citizens however, have less latitude in their options to avoid payment, and spend time in Mountjoy Jail, for peacefully protesting against the whole charade..
Your journalist clearly outlines a dismal legacy for our children’s children- courtesy of the ‘Soldiers of Destiny’, so called, now ensconced in Leinster House;
Wealthy Fianna Fail supporters , landowners and farmers alike, grown fat from polluting both the landscape with ‘one off rural houses;-and the very soil and water underneath such properties- with toxic waste.!
I can only say that the good people of this Island deserve the government they re-elect –and all the consequences of their greed and self serving policies-if they triumph at the polls next June.
Furthermore I say that any citizen who ,despairing of the widespread corruption and environmental despoliation of their native land, refrains from casting a vote,- deserves to be disenfranchised.!
waste right now from Ireland that is baled garbage is in the first stage of a project to be sent to Nigeria
A company right now is trying to send baled garabge from Ireland to landfills in Poland.
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