Dust Never Sleeps

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From top: Irish Cement factory, Mungret, Limerick; A dust laden car over the weekend

Irish cement dust?

Angela’s ashes?

YOU decide!

Tim Hourigan writes:

At the weekend there was a dust blow out from the Irish Cement factory just on the outskirts of Limerick City.

It coated cars and houses in four nearby estates in a grey, gritty, very adhesive dust similar to a larger blowout in 2015.

The company is vehemently denying that there was any incident and that they are the source of the dust.

This comes just a matter of weeks after the factory received planning permission to build storage and handling equipment to feed tyres, plastics, solvents and other wastes into the kiln (which has a history of blowouts including two very large ones in recent years).

It also comes just before the deadline for appealing that planning decision.

Limerick Against Pollution worked on a joint appeal with other groups and individuals who had originally objected to the planning. That included the residents associations of 6 nearby estates and dozens of individuals.

By the time it was submitted, there were 45 parties to the joint appeal.

Approximately 2,000 people have lodged objections with the EPA about the proposal, and just about every councillor has condemned the decision.

Clare councillors also proposed a motion to appeal it, as Limerick Council had not informed Clare Co. Co. of their intention to grant permission.

However, a last minute amendment from Fine Gael councillors in Clare County Council saw this defeated, with the councillors instead proposing an objection to the EPA.

You should also have a listen to this – https://www.live95fm.ie/on-air/shows/limerick-today/limerick-today-podcasts/march-2017/limerick-today-councillors-and-residents-have-gr/ An interesting 12 minutes for local radio :)

Consultants brought in to ‘educate’ councillors about the project were grilled by councillors, and when asked by councillor Frankie Daly, why they made no reference to the European Commission report on the Cement industry, the consultant said he wasn’t familiar with the report.

The report from 2013 contains figures showing that filter failures in Irish cement factories are more than 20 times higher than those in Germany cement factories.

Good times

Limerick Against Pollution (Facebook)

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25 thoughts on “Dust Never Sleeps

    1. Sam

      The worry isn’t so much what it does to the car to be honest. At least two people reported respiratory problems.
      When there’s a blow out and the filters go offline, then all the other crap comes out unabated until the filters can be brought back on line.

  1. martco

    you think this is bad? take a trip down Clonmel way sometime if you like your air with extras…theres a very quiet but not so little industry down there where half the MDF board for Europe is made courtesy of Coillte…great schtuff for d’oul lungs altogether

      1. martco

        thanks for that article Deluded
        I do remember that case on the news at the time I was a teenager tho so it didn’t really register but interesting to read about how polluting big business operates so close to home!
        regarding Clonmel I had a 2 month work stint installing gear for a well known drinks manufacturer located nearby that Coillte plant, within a few days I developed asthma like symptoms out of nowhere and I noted how the systemboards of the servers I was replacing were covered in this funny beige powder (not the usual dirt this was weird…. the picture of the car in this article interesting as that’s what my car looked like parked outside some evenings down there. only beige :)

  2. De Kloot

    Irish Cement/CRH – one of the most insidious Corporations in this State. The vested interests run deep and wide amongst all the usual suspects. Hands in every pocket and one of the contributing factors to the property bubble last time around.

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