The impending shutting down of garbage incineration in the Westman Islands has prompted the idea of sending the garbage overseas to be burned instead.
In January 2011, high levels of dioxin were discovered around the Westman Islands, and were attributed to the garbage incineration plant there. The Ministry for the Environment temporarily scaled back hours, but the incinerator will have to be greatly upgraded by the end of this year.
Ólafur Þór Snorrason, the director of the environmental and development division of the municipality of the Westman Islands, told RÚV he believes such an upgrade would run into the hundreds of millions of crowns – money the city does not have. As such, they will more or less be compelled to close the trash burning plant altogether.
However, an idea that has arisen has been to send garbage to Europe twice a week by ship. There, he says, there are clients who will not only burn the garbage for the Westman Islanders, but also pay money for recyclable waste.
A final decision on the matter has yet to be taken.
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