Dear listening reader,

This will be a letter among many others. A token that many people are concerned about the building of incinerators (like Indaver) anywhere in Ireland. It is strange that I need to provide arguments to you not to build such facilities in Ireland. So much experience has been gained in the world, that just the statement Learn from history, should be enough. Ireland has been a good example to keep (pre-) history in its living environment, like a Dutchman (Midas Dekkers) wrote: "In Ireland a person or a thing can grow old".

So what can I add to the whole discussion of these incinerators in Ireland: Please don't do it, but spent the money in educating people so that they become again aware of their precious landscape! For a relatively low amount of money (compared to an incinerator and 'compensating' its side effects), one can teach people to stand up against free plastic bags, free drinking water, free garbage collections, no recycling of paper, etc. etc. That is a mental investment worth doing together!

Of course there are a few arguments not to plan an incinerator near the Boyne Valley! The Boyne Valley is an area that has literally made the history of Ireland! Using an GIS (Geographic Information Systems) I determined that the planned incinerator would be visible from the top of Dowth, a 5000-year-old World Heritage site. See a virtual world which is browsable through the web (one needs a VRML plug-in, see the page for more info): http://www.iol.ie/~geniet/irishstones/eng/worldboyne.htm

If you need more information, please let me know.

Another issue is that facilities like incinerators produce more clouds in the sky and as you know, at the Boyne Valley a famous building is depending on cloudless sky's: Newgrange. Even though the incinerator is not visible from Newgrange, clouds formed by the exhausts of the incinerator can block this unique feature of our Irish history. So rethink the building of this plant near the Boyne Valley or anywhere else in Ireland.

I wish you courage to decide the only thing that is good for our future: Say no to any incinerator!
Hope to receive an acknowledgement from you as soon as possible.

Yours sincerely,

Victor Reijs