Dublin Waste Firm Told To Stop Using Farm Site

Three Dublin-based waste companies have been told by the Environmental Protection Agency to stop using a facility at a Co Kildare farm to dispose of residual black bin waste.

Greyhound, Thorntons and Oxigen were using Cleary Composting near Monasterevin to dispose of so-called “organic fines” – the organic element of household black bins. The facility, based on the Co Kildare farm, did not have the valid permission to accept waste that may contain animal by-products, the EPA has said.

Cleary Composting had been processing green waste, such as garden clippings, since 2006, but in 2010 applied to Kildare County Council for a waste permit to accept up to 10,000 tonnes of organic fines. This material is mainly the food waste element of the household bin, which when processed can be used as a top layer to cover landfill sites.

Last August the company was granted the waste permit, and last October it began accepting organic fines.

However local residents began making complaints to Kildare County Council in relation to odours from the facility last January. The following month it emerged there was an error in the permit. A section of the permit states that animal by-products shall only be accepted in accordance with Department of Agriculture approval, and quotes an approval number for the Cleary Composting site, but it emerged that this number did not apply to Cleary Composting but to another compost facility in Carlow.

On March 3rd, the county council removed the invalid approval number, leaving the facility without permission to accept waste which may contain animal by-products.

On May 30th, the EPA wrote to Greyhound, Thorntons and Oxigen saying it had become aware of the amendment by the council to Cleary Composting’s waste permit.

“The agency is, with immediate effect, withdrawing our approval for the transfer of waste materials . . . from your facility to Cleary Compost Shredding Limited, Larch Hill, County Kildare.”

Director of environmental services with Kildare County Council Joe Boland said the addition of the approval number had been a “clerical error” which occurred during the drafting of the permit.

(H/GK)