Ireland's State of the Environment Report 2024

355 Chapter 13: Environment and Industry ■ Cooling water. Many industrial sectors abstract water for the purposes of cooling parts of their processes. Power generation, data centres and dairy processing facilities all require large volumes of water to operate. Usually, this water can be discharged back to the environment after it has been used. ■ Wash water. Many industries use large volumes of water for cleaning production areas and equipment. Much of this water requires further treatment prior to discharge to the environment. The Water Framework Directive, along with the associated statutory instruments, identifies that the removal of a water resource can pose as great a risk to the quality of the environment as any physio-chemical or biological impact. Currently, any enterprise abstracting more than 25,000 litres of water per day is required to register its abstraction with the EPA. Of the 1800 entities registered with the EPA, just 171 are abstracting water for use at industrial installations. The industrial sectors with the highest numbers of sites registered for water abstraction are intensive agriculture, energy generation, chemicals, and food and drink. 22 A Waste Action Plan for a Circular Economy Ireland’s National Waste Policy 2020-2025, Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment. gov – Waste Action Plan for a Circular Economy (www.gov.ie) (accessed 25 July 2024). 23 National Hazardous Waste Management Plan 2021-2027, EPA. National Hazardous Waste Management Plan 2021-2027 | Environmental Protection Agency (epa.ie) (accessed 25 July 2024). 24 National Waste Management Plan For a Circular Economy 2024-2030, Local Government Ireland, Regional Waste Management Planning Offices. National Waste Management Plan for a Circular Economy 2024-2030 – MyWaste (accessed 25 July 2024). Waste arisings and the circular economy Together with wider society, industry needs to move away from a linear economy and towards a more circular economy (see Chapter 15). The industrial licensing regime has longstanding requirements to reduce waste arisings and to recover or recycle as much waste as possible. The current waste policy, 22 the National Hazardous Waste Management Plan 23 and the National Waste Management Plan for a Circular Economy 24 set out how to implement circular economy principles across a range of areas. Industrial facilities remain the largest source of hazardous waste in Ireland, followed by the construction and demolition sector and municipal sources, which produce small amounts of hazardous waste in comparison. The types of industrial hazardous waste generated include waste treatment by-products, industrial solvents, sludges, oils, waste electrical and electronic equipment, batteries and infectious healthcare waste. Ireland does not have the facilities required to treat the full range of hazardous waste that it generates, and much of it is exported for treatment (Figure 13.19). In 2021, for the first time, a higher percentage of hazardous waste was treated in Ireland (52%) than was exported (48%). This is dealt with in greater detail in Chapter 15. Figure 13.19  Destination of hazardous waste exported from Ireland, 2015-2022 ˜ 2015 ˜ 2016 ˜ 2017 ˜ 2018 ˜ 2019 ˜ 2020 ˜ 2021 ˜ 2022 0 20000 40000 60000 80000 100000 120000 Others Portugal Norway France Belgium Germany Nether- lands United Kingdom Tonnes Country Source: EPA