Drones and bye laws used in dumping battle
PEOPLE who use Wexford County Council’s recycling bring centres will be required to produce receipts proving they have been responsibly disposing of their recyclables, going back up to a year.
Cllr Oisin O’Connell said he, for one, would be hard pressed to find receipts going back a year.
‘They’ve probably been put in the recycling bin and recycled at the bring centre,’ he said.
A report on the implementation of the Litter Acts in County Wexford was supplied to councillors.
Gerry Forde of the council’s Environment section, said: ‘These bye laws are a very important part of dealing with illegal dumping.’
240 people have been fined this year so far for litter and dumping offences and 20 people have been taken to court and prosecuted for the offence. Wexford County Council has just completed an anti-dumping initiative in conjunction with the Waste Environment Regional lead authority for the southern region. €61,000 was spent on dealing with around ten litter black spots, with extensive use of CCTV cameras, drones, the prevision of skips for more than 22 tidy towns groups, two mattress amnesties which saw the collection of 746 mattresses in two days and the clean-up of several badly littered sites. During the initiative 56 fines and 164 warning letters were issued to people. Wexford County Council has also issued several hundred notices under the Waste Management Act 1996, the meeting heard.