Cities bear the brunt of our lockdown litter

Disposable PPE and takeaway cartons are being ditched on the streets

THE litter problem in cities is the worst it has been in ten years, an industry expert has warned.

Dublin, Cork and Limerick city centres were among those to experience higher levels of litter this year than in 2020.

Dublin’s north inner city was ranked the worst area in the country by the first post-lockdown survey by Irish Business Against Litter (IBAL).

‘For cities, this survey paints a bleak picture. Litter levels have worsened to a level we have not seen in the past ten years. Now that we have emerged from lockdown, we cannot use it as an excuse for high levels of litter,’ said IBAL’s Conor Horgan.

The survey divided areas into six categories: cleaner than European norms, clean to European norms, moderately littered, littered, heavily littered and – the worst – litter blackspot.

Galway, Tallaght and Ballymun were the only urban areas to register significant year-on-year improvement, while all but one of the bottom ten places were in cities. Dublin’s north inner city was deemed a litter blackspot for the first time since 2014.

Only two of the 25 sites tested there were found to be clean whereas 17 were ‘heavily littered’ or worse.

An Taisce, which carried out the survey for IBAL, found ‘sacks of abandoned rubbish’ on Lower Sheriff Street and beer cans in the canal there.

The pandemic was blamed as one cause of rising litter across the country.

Alongside an increase in alcoholrelated rubbish such as bottles, the study showed a nearly 30% increase in the prevalence of PPE masks ditched on streets.

‘The need for PPE has not abated – unfortunately we’re still using disposable masks, we’re still dropping them at an alarming rate and they are still not being picked up,’ said Mr Horgan.

Learned habits to reduce Covid19 transmission have also impacted the environment.

‘We are consuming more outdoors and this is translating into more food-and-drink-related litter,’ said Mr Horgan. IBAL specifically criticised urban local authorities that had failed to address littering in areas previously identified as problematic.

Fewer than half of the 103 sites exposed in last year’s survey improved in 2021.

But the country is not a littered wasteland just yet.

The survey showed a 20% drop in coffee cup litter and a steep fall in discarded cigarette butts. While cities suffered, the study found that 68% of towns had actually cleaned up over the past 12 months. Portlaoise in Co. Laois, which was at the very foot of the table back in 2010, emerged as the cleanest of the 40 areas surveyed nationwide.

An Taisce said the victory resulted from ‘years of concerted effort and steady improvement’ in the town.

Portlaoise finished ahead of Leixlip in Co. Kildare, and beat Ennis, Co. Clare, which was last year’s winner.

The survey commended notable improvements in Tipperary town and in Carlow and Longford, which were both rated cleaner than European norms.

In total, the number of areas deemed clean rose from 17 to 23.

Mr Horgan said: ‘With local authority cleaning schedules normalising again and volunteer groups re-engaged in clean-ups across the country, our towns are almost as clean as two years ago.

‘However, this is still some way short of where they were in 2014,’ he added.

The IBAL was set up in 1996 and it is an alliance of companies who believe that a litter-free environment is needed to attract tourism and foreign investment.