Galway Bay fm newsroom – A new survey by Irish Business Against Litter has described Galway city and the area of Ballybane as “moderately littered”.
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An IBAL spokesman said: “While almost all of Ireland’s main towns are now clean, pockets of our major cities continue to suffer from significant levels of litter”.
“Work at keeping these areas clean for six to twelve months and they are likely to stay clean, and the community can have pride in their neighbourhood”, said IBAL’s Conor Horgan.
He said: “Our litter problem is now primarily a city problem”.
The Dublin Airport area was the only Dublin area to rank “cleaner than European norms”.
Yet just a short trip over the M50 and Ballymun is littered with rubbish, including broken glass, cigarette butts and dumping sites.
“But there are pockets of our cities where litter is a problem, and has been a problem for a number of years”.
The status of Ballymun and Dublin’s north inner city as littered detracted from the capital’s achievement somewhat, while Cork and Limerick produced mixed performances. The city centre and Stillorgan were listed as “clean to European norms”, matching standards around the continent.
By contrast more than 90 per cent of the 25 towns inspected by An Taisce were recorded as clean, with nearly half judged to be cleaner than European norms.
According to IBAL, litter is a symptom of social neglect, and councils need to look at a community-wide response.
A survey of litter black spots in Ireland shows that dumping is on the rise, especially in disadvantaged urban areas. The business group agrees with the introduction of the pay-by-weight waste collection system, but fears it may lead to more dumping. “This can only be harmful to our environment”, Mr Horgan added.
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Sweet wrappers, cigarette butts, chewing gum and fast food wrappers are to blame for litter in most parts of the country.
