Increasing abuse of recycling centre may close it down

A SENIOR Cork County Council official has threatened to close an award-winning recycling centre because nappies and other unsavoury items have been dumped at it, and calls have been made to publicly name and shame the culprits.

Mr Jerome O’Sullivan, a senior executive engineer in the council’s West Cork Division, said that the Rosscarbery bring site, which won an environmental award two years ago, had been subjected to serious abuse over the Christmas period.

He warned that if it continued he would have no alternative but to close it down.

“If this abuse goes on we will have to give serious consideration to closing it down. Something has gone seriously wrong there,” Mr O’Sullivan told councillors from the West Cork region.

Following a request from Cllr Maura Cal McCarthy to install CCTV cameras, Mr O’Sullivan said he was looking at that possibility, especially as they had proved effective at similar sites in Bantry and Dunmanway.

Cllr Jim Daly said he had heard about the disgraceful scenes in Rosscarbery and said that there were even more unsavoury items than nappies dumped there, although he declined to elaborate further.

The Mayor of County Cork, Cllr John O’Shea, said that throughout Christmas and the new year he had seen a huge amount of plastic bags full of rubbish dumped on the roadsides in West Cork. He maintained they had been thrown from passing cars and vans.

Meanwhile, Cllr Joe Carroll claimed that a number of bring sites in the region had been abused in recent weeks and he wanted to introduce a €1 charge per visit so more council staff could be employed to monitor such activity.

Cllr McCarthy was against this because she claimed that once a charge was introduced it would be quickly increased and would deter people who were currently willing to recycle.