Litter league reveals country cleaning up its act
But the group had good news to report overall.
The second round of its three-round competition shows the country is cleaning up, with as litter levels dropping by 30% in the last 10 years.
The ‘Dirty Old Dublin’ tag could be applied to the capital as it came sixth from the bottom and was hailed a “litter blackspot” by the IBAL chairman, Dr Tom Cavanagh.
“While both towns and cities have improved over the past three years, Dublin city centre remains a litter blackspot and this summer registered a sharp deterioration on the previous survey.
“Clearly this cannot be compared with your average town around Ireland, yet as a focal point for so many visitors, a clean city centre should be a real priority,” he said.
The N3 at Blanchardstown was described as having “dense levels of litter”, while Island Street in the city centre was deemed “lacking in any respect by the local community”.
Waterford is the only city in the country to achieve ‘litter free’ status while the streets of Galway and Limerick showed marked improvements.
The news wasn’t good for Cork, with six of its eight city and county areas appearing in the bottom half of the table.
All three towns in Tipperary were in the bottom half.
Out of the 57 areas inspected, Cork, Limerick and Galway cities were described as being “moderately littered” and came in at 37th, 27th and 14th places.
Only eight towns were branded ‘litter blackspots’ with Mayfield in Cork, Finglas in Dublin and Sligo occupying the bottom positions.
“We are confident those few towns still classed as heavily littered or blackspots will follow the lead of the many towns who have cleaned up their act in the past year or two.
“The focus has to be more and more on these bad apples. Remember, people in a town like Cavan or Carlow are no different from those in Sligo or Clonmel.
“What may differ is the determination of the local authority in these towns,” said Dr Cavanagh.
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