Clean-up day signals start of Tidy Towns volunteer season in Castleisland

EVEN before the clocks struck 11am on Saturday morning, the approach roads and streets around the town began to look as they should – if we lived in a society where everyone showed care and concern for the environment.

The good thing about the day’s County Clean-Up is that there was a greater-than-ever turnout in the area – even if it was on a bitterly cold morning.

The not-so-good point is that the need exists for such mobilisation of volunteers to clean up after those who treat the roadsides and streets as their personal dumping grounds.

Some of the litter pickers here were surprised at the amount of rubbish they found and picked up – while others were appalled at the state of the roadsides in particular.

Pickers in Cordal are convinced that someone in their community has wings. They collected a sack-full of Red Bull cans – empty cans – along a short stretch of roadway around the Ballinahalla area.

On the Scartaglin Road here in Castleisland, there was a greater variety of drinks bottles and cans collected.

Mary Walsh of the Castleisland Tidy Towns Committee was one of the volunteers out on the Scart Road, and she expressed the delight of the committee at the turnout of help in the locality this morning.

Litter pickers on all the roads were clearly very busy as the heap of bags being deposited at the designated area at River View Place in Tonbwee grew ever higher as the day wore on.

Given the rate the Castleisland collection was growing at throughout the day, it is likely that the 8,000 bags collected in 2018 by the 5,500 volunteers will be surpassed by Saturday’s figures.

Castleisland Tidy Towns Committee issued a big ‘Thank You’ to everyone who took part either on the day itself or in the days coming up to the event.

“We had up to 50 volunteers on the day, and we covered a much bigger area than we did in previous years,” said Mary Walsh on behalf of the committee.

“We received great support from Castleisland Chamber Alliance, and it proves the old Irish saying: Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireann na daoine.

“We will be starting our weekly Tidy Towns nights on Tuesday, April 30, weather permitting.

“We meet at The Fountain at 6.30pm and work for an hour. The work involves general tidying, weeding and deadheading. No experience needed,” said Mary.