Litter volunteers spring into action

ONE of the most heartening trends around the country nowadays is the huge number of people taking part in voluntary litter-picking and other related works to tidy up their neighbourhoods.

Last year, more than 500,000 participated in 5,300 clean-ups during the annual National Spring Clean. Now running for 13 years and regarded as, arguably, Ireland’s most popular and successful anti-litter initiative, it will again take place through the month of April.

The campaign, organised by An Taisce and funded by the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, encourages every sector of society to actively participate by conducting clean-ups in their own local environment.

Children and younger people, already very much involved in the schools’ Green Flag initiative, make up a sizeable section of this volunteer army.

Last year, an estimated 1675 tonnes of litter was collected, of which 35% was recycled. The message is that in the current era of climate change the more we recycle, the more we reduce our carbon emissions, so taking part in National Spring Clean does make a difference.

As well as looking ugly, broken bottles and cans left lying around public areas can easily result in an injury, while food litter can attract rats and flies, which spread disease.

Litter is also lethal to wildlife, from discarded fishing lines that can maim and kill water birds, to plastic bags mistaken for food and ingested by animals such as cows, sheep, horses and some marine animals.

Research on the littering of minor roads has shown the number of items deposited on these roads was an average of over 3,500 items per kilometre per year. One site surveyed had an astonishing 10,000 items per kilometre. Almost 60% of identifiable litter items were beverage containers and packaging.

The benefits of not littering are manifold. According to An Taisce, every aluminium can collected and recycled means enough energy is saved to run your television for three hours.

For 1kg of recycled plastics collected, 1.5kg of carbon dioxide is prevented from being released to the atmosphere, the same amount of carbon dioxide released by toasting 30 slices of bread. By recycling 1kg of paper instead of landfilling, enough energy is saved to run an energy-saving bulb non-stop for two days. Packaging used to wrap takeaway food makes up a large share of the litter, with much of it thrown from cars in the dark hours.

Many of our national primary roads are still a disgrace, but the stretch of the N22 from the Cork/Kerry county bounds to Killarney is a notable exception.

People in the Glenflesk area have organised a rota whereby that road and other roads in their area are cleaned regularly.

Killarney councillor and former mayor Michael Gleeson, who is regularly seen out picking up litter on roadsides with other willing people, believes the Glenflesk scheme could be adopted nationally. Similarly, the Killarney Tidy Towns Committee, which is coming ever closer to winning the top prize, has had the benefit of the work of volunteers who are continuously striving to ensure the leading tourist town looks its best and is kept litter-free.

Likewise Kerry County Council has been running a successful Adopt a Road scheme in which 150 groups participated last year.

A large number of community groups from the Cork coastal region will come together for a massive clean-up of the coastline on Saturday April 2. The clean-up — called Clean Cork Harbour and Beyond Weekend — is being organised by the Clean Coast Programme and will kick-start National Spring Clean.

Olivia Crossan, Clean Coast Officer, Cork, says: “This is a wonderful opportunity to get various different types of community groups in society together for a common cause. By participating in this event, our coastal shores will be cleaner and together we can show our pride in our beautiful county.”

15 volunteer and Coastcare groups have already signed up for the event and the clean-ups will start in each area at 10am:

Blackrock Blackrock Rowing Club; Blackrock Walking Club; Big Fish Games; Blackrock Castle.

Alongside the railway tracks near Fota: Cobh Tidy Towns; Volunteers form Fota Wildlife Park and House; Irish Rail.

Front Strand & Claycastle, Youghal: Youghal Tidy Towns.

Inch Beach: Agahda Community Association.

Fountainstown Beach: Fountainstown Community Association.

Myrtleville Beach: Myrtleville Coastcare group.

Churchbay Beach: Crosshaven — Church Bay Coastcare group.

Midleton: Midleton Tidy Towns.

Bellvelly/Great Island: Bellvelly Coastcare group.

Passage West: Passage West Tidy Towns.

* To register for National Spring Clean call [phone] or log on to the website www.nationalspringclean.org or you can also email Olivia Crossan for more information on the event [e-mail] //ends