Councillors call for seven-day-a-week bin service

Anton McNulty

MAYO County Council has passed a motion calling for all bins in the county to be collected seven days a week to address the problem of overflowing bins in many towns and villages.
The easing of the Covid-19 restrictions in recent weeks has resulted in an increase in outdoor gatherings and as a consequence there has been an increase in littering due to overflowing bins.
The problems was highlighted by Achill councillor Paul McNamara two weeks ago who called for extra bins to deal with increased crowds but he was informed that there was a delay in the supply of public bins.

Overflowing
At yesterday’s meeting of Mayo County Council, Ballina-based councillor Mark Duffy submitted a motion calling for the county council to ensure bins were emptied seven days a week across the county.
“The picture at the moment at least in Ballina is that there is huge work done by community groups to tackle the litter problem and it is not being helped by instances where Mayo County Council are not administrating seven day a week bin collections. It is causing overflow of bins which is littering towns and villages across the county.
“Society does not stop at 5pm on a Friday when work is finished. We must have a local authority who administer its services throughout the week. I do think regardless of where responsibility lies a county wide approach needs to ensure bins are collected when they are overflowing and not left from Friday until the Monday,” he said.
His motion was supported by a number of councillors including Cllr Damien Ryan who stated that the emptying of bins was one of the services which the public were looking for the council to do.

Outdoor socialising
Westport councillor Christy Hyland said that the public have been encouraged by the Government to socialise outdoors and the services need to be in place to cater for this.
“We don’t want our visitors in Westport observing the bins overflowing and that is what is happening on the ground. I want to thank the operational staff who do great work but we need bins to be emptied in the morning and the evening in the Westport area.”
Cllr Ger Deere said there was a serious problem with littering in Castlebar and did not want the problem this summer. He added that increasing the Local Property Tax was to increase services like this and felt it was ‘a bit rich’ for councillors who did not support the increase to call for extra services.
Cllr Donna Sheridan also supported the motion and welcomed the use of a hi-tech bin made by a Mayo company which sends a communication to the council when it is full. The two bins are located at the Mall and at Lough Lannagh in Castlebar and she said they will save on costs.