Staff collect ‘phenomenal’ amount of litter on seafront over weekend
OUTDOOR staff collected a ‘phenomenal’ amount of rubbish from the seafront over the weekend, according to Bray’s District Administrator David Forde. The bins were emptied multiple times a day by teams working long hours in the hot sun.
In some cases, where a bin may have been full, people left bags of rubbish around it, although Mr Forde said that there would have been capacity in other bins along the seafront.
There were six staff members in on Saturday and six on Sunday. One person was in from 6.30 a.m. preparing for the huge volumes of visitors expected to come and make the most of the good weather.
The amount of rubbish collected was comparable to air display levels, Mr Forde said.
Teams worked until 9 p.m. on Sunday evening and were back in again on Monday morning at 8 a.m.
One local man raised concerns that one particular bin at the northern end is always full.
‘More bins are needed at this point, or to be emptied more often and the bin in the harbour is now gone,’ he said.
Mr Forde said that between permanent bins, wheelie bins and basket bins, there are over 50 containers available on the seafront.
He added that, so far, there haven’t been any incidents of serious sunburn or sunstroke reported by lifeguards on Bray beach. Neither have they had to carry out any rescues.
As part of a bin replacement programme, Bray Municipal District (MD) is installing a further batch of smart bins around the town, locations for which have been determined by Bray MD engineering staff. When the installation of the current batch of smart bins is complete, Bray MD will have approximately 70 in total located throughout the district. In excess of €600,000 was spent in 2017 on street cleaning in Bray district and on maintenance of the seafront esplanade.
The smart bins contain an inbuilt compactor and, using solar power, compact rubbish during the course of the day. This means they have three times the capacity of a normal bin and also have a telemetry system which relays the capacity status of the bins.
Bray MD and Bray Tourism have co-ordinated the provision of litter pickers for the past number of years for the summer season. The litter pickers supplement the work of Bray MD staff who will continue to work on the Seafront for the busy summer season.