Navan the dirtiest town in Ireland

NAVAN is the dirtiest town in Ireland while Carlow is the cleanest, according to latest results from the Irish Business Against Litter (IBAL) Anti-Litter League.

IBAL has warned that potential investors are being met with a “landscape of litter” in many parts of the country as one quarter of all industrial estates surveyed were “litter blackspots”.

Pay-by-weight regulations are also leading to a significant increase in illegal dumping, according to IBAL, and recycling centres have become eyesores as they are not being cleaned regularly enough.

“We’re not showing our best face but a dirty face to the commercial interests which are vital to our economy. High-tech overseas investors expect industrial estates to be pristine, not focal points for widespread litter and dumping,” said IBAL chairman Dr Tom Cavanagh.

Just 12 of the 57 towns who took part in the IBAL survey were described as “litter free”, which meant that they were of similar standard to other European countries.

A further 14 were “litter blackspots” and the rest were either “moderately littered” or having a “serious litter problem”.

According to IBAL, litter levels have worsened in the past year as the average grade achieved by towns and cities has dropped by 7% to an average of 68%.

Cities, especially Dublin and Cork, are, however, continuing to show improvements.

IBAL, which is an alliance of 30 businesses, said that if Ireland really wants to “clean up its act” it must enforce its existing laws for littering and dumping.

“The cheapest way to become litter-free is to enforce the law and the most expensive is for the local authority to do the cleaning up,” Dr Cavanagh said.

Carlow is in pole position, he says, as it has pushed the anti-litter agenda by organising its own ‘mini-league’, where communities are pitted against each other on a weekly basis.

As for Navan, which came bottom of the list, An Taisce inspectors said there was little maintenance of public areas and high litter levels.

“The worst area in Navan was Clogherboy. It was hard to describe the level of neglect. Not only were there heavy litter levels but the children’s play area had become dangerous, graffiti was in abundance and the whole area looked desolate,” the An Taisce report read.