“MONUMENTAL” dumping earned Limerick a disappointing result in the Irish Business Against Litter (IBAL) survey, published this week.
The survey found that Limerick City and Galvone were both considered to be “littered”, with just seven of Limerick’s 25 surveyed areas earning the top grade possible.
Nationally, Limerick City Centre ranked 38th on the cleanliness leaderboard, or third from the bottom.
Five Limerick areas earned the moniker of “litter blackspots”, with “monumental dumping” noted at 20 Mallow Street in the city.
The IBAL report also noted that a vacant site on William Street was an “eyesore right in the heart of the city”.
Elsewhere in the city centre, improvements were noted on O’Connell Street and at Colbert Station, with both areas earning a top mark for cleanliness (ranking them ‘cleaner than European norms’).
Cecil Street saw improvements on previous surveys, while Mount Kenneth Place also saw improvements, despite remaining “somewhat littered”.
In the Galvone area, two litter blackspots were noted, with the report particularly pointing out “the recycle facility within Roxboro Shopping Centre, which has been a poorly ranking site over previous IBAL surveys”, as well as “significant dumping” adjacent to Treaty Steel at the Galvone Industrial Estate.
On a more positive note, Roxboro Shopping Centre and Crosgalla Business Park scored well, with the adjudicator saying they were “well presented and maintained”.
Nationally, for the first time since the IBAL surveys began two decades ago, no area was considered “seriously littered”, with the league hoping that the Deposit Return Scheme would help to decrease plastic waste, but are calling for more action to be taken on coffee cup waste.
The Deposit Return Scheme will see ‘Re-turn’ logos added to plastic bottles and aluminium cans, which can then be returned at stores across the country for a refund of the deposit paid on the bottle – ranging from 15c for smaller bottles to 25c for larger ones.
IBAL’s Conor Horgan said that this year’s result for Limerick was a “disappointing” one.
“This is a disappointing result for Dublin and Limerick city centres, given that they both enjoyed ‘clean’ status a few years ago,” he said.
“For years our worst performing areas were deemed either ‘litter blackspots’ or ‘seriously littered’. This baseline would seem to be changing, with ‘littered’ becoming the bottom tier. Cleanliness begets cleanliness, and there is reason to hope the improvement will continue in future years.”
