OVER HALF OF complaints made to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by the public about industrial and waste facilities last year were over odour issues.
The complaints were outlined in EPA’s industrial and waste licence enforcement report, launched today.
The EPA is responsible for the environmental regulation of large industrial and waste activities.
The report gives details of compliance levels and enforcement activities across the over 800 licensed facilities in 2018.
The EPA noted that there has been a 22% reduction in the number of complaints received by the agency when compared with 2017, with the majority of sites (85%) not having any complaints made against them.
“This reflects both significant investment and operational improvements made by licensees, as well as targeted enforcement action by the EPA to address odour issues at licensed sites,” the EPA notes in the report.
Of the complaints received, 57% related to odour, 27% related to noise, 7% related to air quality and the rest of the complaints were related to issues such as water quality, flies, waste and vibration.
In total, 799 complaints were received by EPA from the public last year.
34% of all complaints received related to just three sites.
The Arrow Group received a total of 145 complaints, Glanbia Foods Ireland Limited received 66 and Rosderra Irish Meats Group (Edenderry) received 63.
Complaints were also received by the EPA from the public about the following places:
The report notes that, overall, the level of compliance amongst industrial and waste licensed sites in Ireland in 2018 was good.
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