PPE litter jumps 30% in a year, post-lockdown survey finds

The survey was carried out by An Taisce for Irish Business Against Litter.

A survey carried out for Irish Business Against Litter found an increase in alcohol-related litter, including cans and bottles (PA)

By Cate McCurry, PA

October 18 2021 12:09 PM

The prevalence of face masks dumped on the streets has jumped by 30% in the last year, a post-lockdown survey found.

The survey, carried out by An Taisce for Irish Business Against Litter (Ibal), also found an increase in alcohol-related litter, including cans and bottles.

In its first post-lockdown survey, it found that while the majority of towns in Ireland have cleaned up over the past 12 months, litter in the main cities has worsened to levels not seen in 10 years.

Portlaoise emerged as the cleanest of the 40 areas surveyed nationwide, but Dublin’s North Inner City was at the foot of the rankings, the only area to be branded a “litter blackspot”.

Latest IBAL litter survey results: how is your town doing?https://t.co/j3vUGAqXc6 #litterleague pic.twitter.com/3JQKw3Yiyg
— Irish Business Against Litter (@IrishLitter) October 17, 2021

The number of areas deemed clean rose from 17 to 23. In all, 68% of towns showed an improvement on last year.

Portlaoise, which was at the very bottom of the table in 2010, topped the rankings, ahead of Leixlip and past winner Ennis.

Notable improvement was seen in Tipperary town and in Carlow and Longford, which were both “cleaner than European norms”.

Ibal’s Conor Horgan said: “With local authority cleaning schedules normalising again and volunteer groups re-engaged in clean-ups across the country, our towns are almost as clean as two years ago.

“This is still some way short of where they were in 2014, however.”

Dublin’s North Inner City was at the foot of the rankings, the only area to be branded a litter blackspot (PA)

By contrast, the majority of urban areas fared worse than in 2020, among them Dublin, Cork and Limerick city centres, which were all deemed “littered”.

Only Galway and Dublin’s Tallaght and Ballymun registered significant year-on-year improvement.

All but one of the bottom 10 places in the rankings were occupied by urban areas.

“For cities, this survey paints a bleak picture,” Mr Horgan added.

“Litter levels have worsened to a level we have not seen in the past 10 years. Now that we have emerged from lockdown, we cannot use it as an excuse for high levels of litter.

“As we invest in promotional drives and build city hotels in anticipation of more visitors, we need to be mindful of the littered environment we are presenting to them.”

We had seen a gradual if unspectacular clean-up of the North Inner City over the past seven years, but recent surveys suggest this has unravelledConor Horgan, of Ibal

For the first time since 2014, Dublin’s North Inner City was deemed a litter blackspot.

Of the 25 sites in the area surveyed, only two were found to be clean, and 17 were “heavily littered” or worse.

Among these were the ESB site at Sheriff St Lower and Ossory Road, where sacks of rubbish had been abandoned, along with piles and piles of accumulations of litter, the survey found.

Aldborough Place, which was subject to dumping, the Canal Walk, where “heavy levels of food and alcohol-related items had been discarded in the canal” and the canal at Spencer Dock, where “bicycles, railings and industrial rubbish” were among the litter found.

“We had seen a gradual if unspectacular clean-up of the North Inner City over the past seven years, but recent surveys suggest this has unravelled. Nearby Ballymun has improved a lot in the past 24 months – why can’t the same happen in this area,” Mr Horgan added.

“The need for PPE has not abated – unfortunately we’re still using disposable masks, we’re still dropping them at an alarming rate and they are still not being picked up.

“We are consuming more outdoors and this is translating into more food and drink-related litter.”

Despite this, the survey showed a 20% drop in coffee cup litter and a steep fall-off in cigarette butts.

Ibal criticised local authorities, accusing them of failing to address sites which they have previously highlighted as heavily littered, especially in urban areas.

Of the 103 such sites exposed last year, fewer than half have been cleaned up in 2021, it said.