Episode 06

(Eco Eye s4/e6)

Household Construction and Demolition Waste: There’s an obsession with building in Ireland and a large part of this is one-off housing, extensions and upgrading of existing homes. There is certainly a great need, opportunities and value in improving our homes but there’s also been a huge growth in the amount of waste being produced from these building sites. Ten years ago industry was regarded as the ‘dirty industry’, today it’s construction, where the greatest amount of waste is being disposed of without genuine efforts to reduce, salvage or recycle. It’s also the industry that is contributing most to fly-tipping and illegal dumping.

We visit a Victorian terraced house in Dublin that’s undergoing extensive refurbishment but is managing its waste in a responsible way. We see from this the benefits of minimising the demolition, carefully removing and salvaging where possible and sourcing artefacts and building products from architectural salvage. We explore the typical problems for householders when disposing of waste materials and hiring skips and the savings that can be made by recycling.

Switching to Green Electricity: Ireland is facing an energy crisis. The cost of energy fuels is rising rapidly and our CO2 emissions are out of control – we now know we will not meet our Kyoto commitments by 2008 and heavy fines are pending. Electricity generation is about one third of our energy needs and 95% of this is sourced from fossil fuels, and we now depend on 90% of this from imports. Our only solution to this pending crisis is a switch to green electricity. This is presently being sourced from wind-power in Ireland but also can be produced from biomass sources such as, wood, energy crops and methane from landfill and other organic waste. Many businesses, Local Authorities and schools are switching to green electricity and Airtricity now have 50,000 commercial customers in Ireland. We visit a VEC secondary school in Galway who have switched and see the benefits and interview the teachers and students. We also visit an award-winning restaurant in Galway who have also made the switch and not only save €15,000 but also 70 tonnes of CO2 per year by doing so. We also interview Airtricity and the Renewable Energy Information Office (REIO) to learn more about this.

Controlling and Improving the Environmental Impact of Industry: 20 years ago the industry sector in Ireland was regarded as causing the greatest emissions to our environment. Our older dirty industries caused major emissions of acidifying gases, effluent to rivers and waste to dumps. We were lucky 200 hundred years ago in escaping the industrial revolution, with huge sulphur dioxide emissions from coal-fired steel-refining plants found across industrial England and which have left their mark. Twenty years ago there was a great threat of new industrial pollution, when large multi-national industries were being attracted to various locations in Ireland and environmental standards were generally ignored. When the EPA was founded, it immediately tackled Irish industry with the introduction of the Integrated Pollution Protection and Control licence. Now our industries are well monitored and regulated and are constantly being upgraded. We visit a successful dairy factory in Kerry and see how they have managed to improve their environmental performance whilst remaining a successful business.