National Spring Clean campaign

VOLUNTEERS are being sought to give Ireland a spring clean.

More than 11,000 tonnes of on-street litter was collected by volunteers during a single month last year.

But promoters of a major clean-up are hoping to top that figure in a month-long campaign during April.

Patricia Oliver, who heads a National Spring Clean campaign, said litter remained a problem despite trojan efforts involving local communities, and local and national government and also the business community.

The National Spring Clean campaign promoted by An Taisce, she said, had delivered positive results over the past four years through raising awareness of the of the problem year-on-year.

However, she warned: "Despite success to date, litter continues to be a serious problem and potentially has a negative impact on one of the primary drivers of our economy tourism."

Community, business and voluntary groups are being urged to organise local clean up activities.

Last year, more than 202,000 people voluntarily offered their services to assist locally-run schemes

The organisers have added a new dimension to this year's campaign.

A corporate challenge is being introduced where participant companies have been invited to compete against each other in organising activities.

In addition to the many millions expended in legal disposal of domestic and commercial waste, local authorities spent more than 43m in street and road cleaning services.

Repak, which is participating in this year's campaign, yesterday underlined the importance of segregating waste.

Its chief executive Andrew Hetherington said packaging waste, especially, was a very visible means of litter which ended up in landfill or scattered around cities and the countryside.

Repak, he said, estimated that 15% of litter was plastic and, along with aluminum cans, was high recyclable if separated properly.

"We hope this year will see greater levels of recycling of litter," he said.

National Spring Clean, Mr Hetherington said, also helped to educate the public about the ease of recycling.

Meanwhile, other traditional elements of the campaign such as the 'grot spot' and clean-ups organised by schools, community groups and residents' associations will also take place.