Anna-Marie Flynn
BALLINA is just one step away from being deemed a ‘litter blackspot’ after dismal results in a national survey, while Castlebar has also plummeted in the rankings.
Just 12 months after the north Mayo capital earned litter-free status, the town will no doubt be accused of ‘resting on its laurels’ after coming 49th in a league of 55 Irish towns.
Ballina fell 37 places, from its 2007 ranking at 12th position, into the ‘seriously littered’ category, after marginally avoiding the blackspot labels allocated to Roscommon, Tullamore and Tallaght.
The listing is the latest survey from Irish Business Against Litter, an alliance of companies that uses the environmental group An Taisce to monitor all towns with a population of 6,000 and over. The agency says all judging is carried out in accordance with international grading standards.
The figures released yesterday (Monday) also spell disaster for Castlebar after it too lost its litter-free tag. Finishing 36th, it is down 14 places, from 22 last year. The county town was dubbed ‘moderately littered’, falling short of the ‘clean to European norms’ bracket.
An Taisce described Ballina’s result as ‘very disappointing’. The most heavily littered site was said to be at the council car park adjacent to Dunnes Stores. “This has clearly been used as a drinking spot with all associated debris and the recycle facility was in poor condition; it is the legal responsibility of the owner to keep it clean.”
Meanwhile the areas of Pearse Street, Garden Street and Market Square were noted as having ‘serious levels’ of litter. while Killala Road ‘didn’t just have casual, food-related litter – there was some discarded carpet and general paper’.
With reference to Castlebar, An Taisce stated: “It will have to do better if it is to move up the table. Half of the sites surveyed in Castlebar had moderate levels of litter – many of these could be improved with a little extra care and attention eg Turlough Approach Road, Main Street and Blenchara.” Food-related litter was also recorded between Aldi and Market Square.
Nationally, the average litter rating rose to a record 79 points, up three per cent on the previous survey. However, almost half of all approach roads to towns were littered, and inspectors found supermarket car parks to be particular problem areas.
REACTION
Mayor calls for withdrawal
THE Mayor of Ballina has called for withdrawal from the IBAL litter listings after stating he is ‘not overly-concerned’ by the results as the information is not ‘reliable’.
Mayor of Ballina, Cllr Padraig Moore, told The Mayo News: “Each town puts itself forward to participate in this but it has come to the time I think we should just pull out of it because it is not consistent whatsoever. The judging process is like a see-saw. One year we’re up and the next we’re down. No one knows what criteria are used to correlate this. Ennis was named the winner of the Tidy Towns the same year as IBAL said it was the dirtiest town in the country, so it doesn’t add up. Ballina spends €380,000 on street-cleaning annually as well as two people working full-time with the Tidy Towns so that couldn’t be an issue,” he said. Mayor Moore put the negative result down to the possibility that judging could have been carried out during the recent gas works when street cleaners could, temporarily, not gain access to some areas. “The Tidy Towns have said we are moving up the scale so that is the one we will be taking on board,” he concluded.
