Environmental justice as subtext or omission: Examining discourses of anti-incineration campaigning in Ireland

The incineration of waste is a controversial issue marked by a history of opposition from community groups and environmentalists around the globe. Opponents, particularly in the USA, have frequently adopted a discourse of environmental justice to challenge the legitimacy of incineration. In line with these broad geographies of resistance recent proposals to introduce municipal solid waste incinerators in Ireland have sparked a series of opposition campaigns. However an examination of the discourses of resistance adopted by campaigners in one specific site of resistance, the Galway region on the west coast of Ireland, indicates that the vocabulary of environmental justice has not been publicly articulated. This paper investigates this absence of environmental justice in the language of opposition. The research reveals an interwoven set of contingent conditions that conspire to inhibit the adoption of environmental justice discourses in Ireland. However these conditions are not static and a combination of pressures, both within and beyond Ireland, are creating a dynamic context that could promote the emergence of environmental justice discourses in the future.