TIPT is a free environmental news service published by Friends of the Irish Environment weekly on Tuesdays. More than 12,900 stories from the last four years are searchable on our website, where comments can be posted on individual stories.
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| State to face large EU fines if directive on landfill not enforced |
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IRELAND IS facing EU fines of millions of euro a day from next January if it fails to divert biodegradable waste from landfill, Cré - the Composting Association of Ireland - has said. The number of tonnes of waste diverted from landfill must be increased from 65,000 in 2006 to 550,000 next year, if Ireland is to meet the terms of the EU directive on landfill. According to the latest figures from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) just 7.9 per cent of food and garden waste is currently being diverted to composting, when 25 per cent diversion was needed to meet the terms of the EU directive. Read more.
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| Phasing out of traditional bulbs put back to September |
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 Minister for the Environment John Gormley has said he will not proceed with legislation to phase out traditional light bulbs because the European Union has accelerated its own plans to ban them.
The gradual ban of incandescent light-bulbs was due to commence in Ireland from next June under a new law that was to be published early this year. But Mr Gormley today announced that the Irish proposals will now be dropped in light of more ambitious EU proposals.
Last month, the EU commission published plans to phase out incandescent bulbs starting this September - three months later than the Irish plan - and ending in 2012. Read more. |
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Chinese to return over 23 tonnes of dioxin-scare pork |
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 THE CHINESE authorities have seized more than 23 tonnes of frozen Irish pork "found to be contaminated with dioxin" and have ordered its return to Ireland, the State media agency, Xinhua, said yesterday.
Irish pork has been banned from China since the recall of the product on December 6th last, and the weekend report highlights the difficulties involved in the recall since the dioxin scare began.
The pork was imported by a company in the city of Suzhou in October, the official Xinhua news agency said, adding that inspectors sealed the pork and ordered the company to send it back. Read more. |
| Wheels come off Greens' ministerial car-pooling plans |
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FIRST Taoiseach Brian Cowen doesn't want to take his new €150,000 luxury Mercedes, and now the Greens don't want their ministerial cars. As the country waits to hear the outcome of the social partnership talks aimed at cutting €2bn from government spending, it has emerged that Minister Eamon Ryan proposed to cabinet, in the wake of Mr Cowen's refusal of his new car, that Dublin-based ministers should pool their cars and drivers in order to save money. Despite his enthusiasm for pooling the ministerial fleet, which costs over €6m a year to run, the Sunday Independent has learned that the minister's cost-saving suggestion was quickly rounded on by his Fianna Fail colleagues who were "adamantly" opposed to the idea. Read more. |
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Oireachtas car park must go, says OPW |
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 PLANS TO build an underground car park under Leinster House must be indefinitely deferred and the temporary car park on Leinster Lawn removed, the Office of Public Works (OPW) has said. Leinster Lawn, which faces Merrion Square in front of the Houses of the Oireachtas, was replaced by a car park in July 1998 as a temporary measure during the construction of new facilities for Leinster House.
The planning permission for the work at the time required the lawn be reinstated after the works on Leinster House were completed in 2000. However, this was never done. The OPW deferred the restoration of the lawn on the grounds that an underground car park was planned for the politicians and staff of the Houses. Read more. |
| Public-transport protest |
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 Fifteen environmental groups have come together to oppose the public-transport cuts announced this week. "Bus Éireann and Dublin Bus have begun a downward spiral that will make our car dependency worse. This is against every sustainable principle," the group says. "Ireland's transport emissions are the fastest growing source of our greenhouse gases. Savings could be made by deploying fleets more effectively and introducing interconnected ticket-vending machines."
Press Release
See also: Enough Dublin Bus vehicles for demand - Dempsey |
| Racehorses fall victim to the recession |
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 The sport of kings is increasingly populated by paupers. Some Irish horse owners, who cannot even sell their thoroughbreds at knockdown prices because of the economic downturn, are abandoning their steeds or sending them to be slaughtered for pet food.
Thousands of thoroughbred horses were bought during the boom by cash-rich racing enthusiasts who fancied leading their mount into the parade ring and having a drink in the owners' and trainers' bar.
Now, due to the recession, horses that cost thousands of euros to keep in training every year have become a drain on their owners. Some have deserted their animals. Read more.
Includes: Unwanted horses being sold for €20 |
| Lissadell move 'a unilateral attack' |
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High Court proceedings now being taken by Lissadell Estate owners Edward Walsh and Constance Cassidy against Sligo County Council will seek a declaration that their lands "are not subject to any public right of way."
The plaintiffs in the case are also seeking an order restraining anyone from what is described in a High Court plenary summons as "wrongfully asserting" that their lands are "subject to a public right of way or otherwise slandering" their title.
The High Court claim also seeks interim or interlocutory relief as the court sees fit, damages for slander of title and interference with the plaintiffs' business relations, damages for the intentional and or unlawful interference with their economic interests, and an order for the costs of proceedings. Read more.
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| Ecology centre loses €1m in funding |
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ONE OF the State's pioneering green projects has suffered a major financial setback with the withdrawal of its main sponsor.
The National Ecology Centre in Laytown, Co Meath, also known as Sonairte, says it will continue to operate despite the loss of €1 million in funding from a private donor. The centre, which promotes environmental awareness and sustainable living, says ambitious plans for expansion will have to be put on hold unless a replacement sponsor is found.
Its donor for the past two years, a Meath businessman who wishes to remain anonymous, says his original commitment is a victim of the financial downturn. Read more. |
| Poaching on Lough Allen |
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 A local conservation group is asking the public to be vigilant as there have been reports of poaching in the Lough Allen catchment area. Lough Allen Conservation Association recently received reports that there have been a number of poaching incidents in tributaries leading into the northern part of Lough Allen.
Trout are presently spawning in rivers in the area and with some fish stocks on the decline this kind of illegal fishing is causing concern amongst the local conservation group. 'People have been using nets to catch fish across shallow tributaries that lead into Lough Allen. Not alone that, but they are using high powered lights in deeper pools and then spearing fish, says local angler and Lough Allen Association memer Brian McGourty. Read more. |
| Ill effects of wind farms |
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For many decades, green issues were viewed as the preserve of cranks. Even now, when they have penetrated mainstream awareness, they still come with misconceptions attached. Take wind farms, for example. The prevailing wisdom says that we need to build as many wind farms as possible, to stop burning carbon fuels and save the planet. So, wind farms are inherently good. But this is simply not true. Wind farms are only good if they are properly sited, and if their carbon cost is substantially lower than their carbon saving. Because they are relatively cheap to build and Ireland is windy, wind farms are seen as the ideal solution for our energy problems. Perception has come full circle; nowadays, wind farm opponents are depicted as cranks, selfish Nimbys who are hindering the greater good of all. Read more. |
| Death by a thousand cuts |
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Our peatlands are more than a source of fuel, they act as very efficient carbon sinks. But they are proving vulnerable to new turf-cutting methods, with potentially dangerous results IN THE MONTY PYTHON film The Life of Brian, there is a classic, oft-quoted scene, where the question is posed "What have the Romans ever done for us?" Similarly, our view of peatlands in the past was often as dismissive. Bogs were seen as wet, brown deserts, with no value to man and of little benefit to beast. However, in recent times, there is now a much wider appreciation of peatlands, for example in the areas of biodiversity, flood control and, most importantly, carbon storage. Read more. |
| From small sea-lice do great problems grow |
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IN MANY CHILLY, rattling streams of the west, two little black dots have appeared in golden eggs, the size of peas, lodged among the gravel. The wild salmon babies now have their eyes. They will hatch in March or April, as alevin or fry, and go on, if they are lucky, to be parr, and then smolts, silvered and ready for the sea.
Such talk seems remote from the noisy canyons of Dublin's inner city, and the late and heroic Tony Gregory TD had, sadly, other things to think about in his final months. But his service to environmental groups continued right to the end. Even in December, prompted by Friends of the Irish Environment, he tabled probing Dáil questions, about - of all exurban topics - controlling sea-lice levels at salmon farms. The ministerial answers reflected another crisis in the industry: despite all the efforts, the sea-lice problem has been getting much worse. Read more. |
| Inquiry call after dawn demolition of historic home |
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 Planning managers will this morning be asked to launch an inquiry into how a Victorian house on Newcastle's picturesque promenade was demolished in the dead of night. Mother-of-four Caroline Richman said she was abruptly woken shortly before 6am yesterday by the sound of a huge crash. "Our entire house and everything in it was shaking," she said. "I thought it was an earthquake of some kind or that a bomb had gone off next door." Mrs Richman said she rushed outside to discover that a mechanical 'grabber' was knocking down the derelict Victorian property next to her home on the Co Down town's historic seafront. "We went outside to find this huge grabber tearing huge lumps out of the house and bricks and mortar falling down everywhere. "We pleaded with the people on the grabber to stop but it was useless. It just kept on tearing huge lumps out of the house." Read more. |
| Falcon and pigeons in battle for Derry's skies |
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 Not since allied command used the north west to launch air cover for the Second World War Atlantic convoys has there been such bloodshed in the skies over Derry. Owners of racing pigeons are claiming hundreds of their prized birds are being savaged each year and they cannot do a thing about it.The culprit is not only immune from the law but even enjoys special police protection. It is a spectacular peregrine falcon that has become the demon of the skies over Derry, snatching racing pigeons and taking them high into the spire of St Eugene's Catholic Cathedral. There he eats the birds before discarding the carcasses into the cathedral's gullies. Read more. |
| Shortlist for Severn energy plans |
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 A proposed shortlist of schemes to harness renewable energy from the tides of the Severn estuary has been announced by the UK Government. Five projects have been selected from 10 examined over the last six months. Among these is a 10-mile barrage proposal from Lavernock Point, Vale of Glamorgan, to Somerset, which has come under fire from environmental groups. Two other barrage schemes and two lagoons, which section off the estuary but do not dam it, are also considered. Backers of the the lagoon projects say their proposals would be less damaging to wildlife. Read more. |
| Farmer's secret GM crop defies green rulebook |
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Calls for prosecution of agricultural 'saboteur'
Environmentalists are calling for the prosecution of a farmer who claims to have sabotaged Wales's GM-free status by secretly planting and harvesting genetically modified varieties of maize and feeding them to local sheep and cattle. In a political stunt that has infuriated the National Assembly for Wales, Jonathan Harrington, 53, an agronomist who advises farmers on how to grow crops, claims to have imported two varieties of GM maize from Spain, planted them on his land and given seeds away to two other farmers who also planted the banned crops. Wales has been GM-free since 2000 and markets its milk, meat and vegetables accordingly. Read more. |
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MEPs back binding emission limits for plants |
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 The European parliament's environment committee backed a proposal to set binding sector-specific emission limits for industrial installations regulated under EU pollution legislation in a vote on Thursday.
The limits would be based on emission levels associated with "best available techniques" (BAT) described in EU guidance and adopted by a committee of member states through the EU's comitology procedure. They would apply to all sectors.
The European commission would propose limits within a year of the publication of sectoral BAT guidance documents, known as brefs. German rapporteur Holger Krahmer says binding limits should be less stringent than BAT-associated emission levels. Member states would be free to decide which levels to apply. Read more. |
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Report: Some climate damage already irreversible |
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 Many damaging effects of climate change are already basically irreversible, researchers declared Monday, warning that even if carbon emissions can somehow be halted temperatures around the globe will remain high until at least the year 3000.
"People have imagined that if we stopped emitting carbon dioxide the climate would go back to normal in 100 years, 200 years; that's not true," climate researcher Susan Solomon said in a teleconference.
Solomon, of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colo., is lead author of an international team's paper reporting irreversible damage from climate change, being published in Tuesday's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Read more. |
| Pesticide ban makes good economic sense |
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 The Ontario government's new lawn pesticide ban - which should come into effect early this year -- will do much to protect human and environmental health. But it's also becoming clear the legislation will be a boon to our economy -- boosting business and creating green jobs.
Communities across Canada that already have pesticide restrictions have enjoyed a major expansion of their lawn care sector. For example, in the five years following a pesticide ban in Halifax, the number of lawn care firms in the city grew from 118 to 180 - an increase of 53 per cent, according to Statistics Canada. The number of employees in the sector also grew. Read more. |
| Reduced pollution increases life expectancy: study |
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Reducing pollution produces measurable health gains, according to a new study that found cleaner air had lengthened life expectancy by five months in 51 US cities. Researchers at Brigham Young University and Harvard School of Public Health found that average life expectancy increased by three years between 1980 and 2000 in those cities, and that approximately five months of that gain owed to cleaner air. "Such a significant increase in life expectancy attributable to reducing air pollution is remarkable," said C. Arden Pope III, a BYU epidemiologist and lead author on the study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Read more. | |
