Has Dublin improved litter wise?

Victor

Has Dublin improved litter wise with the introduction of new litter & environmental initiatives like the plastic bag levy and domestic refuse charges?

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Dublin still a dirty old town
Treacy Hogan Environment Correspondent
From: The Irish Independent
Monday, 9th December, 2002

Name-and-shame survey reveals a third of urban areas heavily littered

THE "paltry" enforcement of litter laws will be highlighted today as the final name-and-shame national litter league is revealed.

The Liberties-Coombe area of Dublin has again been branded the most littered area, closely followed by the towns of Drogheda, in Co Louth, and Longford.

A third of the 29 towns surveyed by environment group An Taisce were found to be heavily or very heavily littered, according to Irish Business Against Litter.

Only half a dozen towns Armagh; Carlow; Cavan; Fermoy, in Co Cork; Enniskillen, in Co Fermanagh; and Wexford were declared free of litter, meaning they scored at least 80 out of 100 points. The cleanest of the six will be announced today.

Dr Tom Cavanagh, chairman of Irish Business Against Litter, said improvement in the number of litter-free towns was offset by less enforcement of litter laws. On-the-spot litter fines were down 8pc on last year, he said, to just five fines a week for each local authority.

"With such a paltry level of enforcement, litter-free streets will remain outside the grasp of most authorities."

Portlaoise, in Co Laois, has got worse, falling from 19th to 23rd position, and is now heavily polluted, according to the survey. Sligo has gone up, from 28th to 24th, but is still also classified as heavily polluted.

Ennis, in Co Clare, is "moderately polluted", after going up from joint 11th to 7th; Tuam, in Co Galway, is deemed to be moderately polluted, although up from 18th to 15th.

Towns in Northern Ireland fared substantially better than those south of the border, with two of the three in the survey being declared litter free.

Dr Cavanagh said: "The results demonstrate that litter can be tackled quickly and inexpensively if a focus is put on it. Towns such as Ennis, Sligo and Tuam have made spectacular strides in a very short period of time. "The results bear out IBAL's belief that openly publishing the performance of one local authority against another is an effective means of energising them into action on litter.

"Communities, including businesses, will support their efforts, but the drive must be spearheaded by the local authority."

Dr Cavanagh's alliance of more than 30 businesses believes economic prosperity depends on a clean, litter-free environment. The organisation is planning an amended version of the litter league for next year. The surveys were conducted by An Taisce, the environmental body, using an international standard.

Victor

Carlow named as country's cleanest town
By Luke Cassidy
From: Ireland.com
Monday, 9th December, 2002

Carlow Town has been announced the winner of the inaugral Anti-Litter League at an awards ceremony in Dublin today.

Fermoy in Co Cork came second and Enniskillen in Co Fermanagh was in third place.

In all, six towns fought for top spot in the league after achieving a litter-free status. They were Armagh, Carlow, Cavan, Enniskillen, Fermoy and Wexford.

The Anti-Litter League, organised by Irish Business Against Litter (IBAL), assessed towns throughout Ireland for litter levels based on four surveys taken during the year.

The final league table showed the majority of towns were getting cleaner with two thirds of the towns classified as "Litter Free" or "Moderately Littered".

However, 10 of the 29 towns were deemed 'heavily' or 'very heavily' littered. Drogheda, Longford and the Liberties/Coombe area of Dublin were at the foot of the league table with a 'very heavily' littered rating.

The surveys were conducted by An Taisce in accordance with international standards whereby 80 points or over (out of 100) is considered litter-free.

Dr Tom Cavanagh of IBAL said: "The results bear out IBAL's belief that openly publishing the performance of one local authority against another is an effective means of energising them into action on litter."

"The results also demonstrate that litter can be tackled quickly and inexpensively if a focus is put on it," he added.

Typedef

I think that yes, compared to the 'bad old days' of the mid 80's that Dublin has improved marginally.

That said if you visit somewhere like Vancouver, you really notice how Irish people neglect Dublin.

It's crazy really, that Dubliners (and lots of non Dubliners) would rather chuck their litter on the ground then put it in the bin. It stems from a general contempt for Ireland and everything to do with it. You know what I mean, the attitude "Everything in this country is poxy, so I don't care".

It annoys me when people tramp through the City Centre on GAA match day and trash the place. Literally.

Call me a twisted and bitter Dub, but I sort of resent having to step over puddles of vomit from a load of non-Dubs incrementally during match season.

I said vomit when I should have mentioned the urine and snack boxes thrown about the place (for fun it seems), but a load of people who descend on the area and then leave, leaving us yokals to live with the mess.

I digress. Irish people in general 'pride' themselves on coming from the 'Green Isle', but do absolutely nothing to keep it that way. It is only by virute of Ireland's currently relatively low population that the place is not swamped under a sea of rising litter, Ireland and the UK being bottom of the EU league for recycling.

Dublin City Centre is by no means an exception. Irish people take no pride in the City Centre and seem to have so much contempt or disregard for it and how our country is percieved abroad that it is quite beyond a substancial portion of the population to (a) Vomit in a toilet (b) Urinate in a toilet (c) Use a litter bin as opposed to a street or national monument for rubbish dumping.

On point (c) why do you think Anna Livia was removed?

Regards
Typedef.

Typedef

I'll elaborate slightly.

I was recently in Seattle and on Friday night, walking around Seattle City Centre I didn't once see a stream of Urine or Vomit decending from a laneway or generally down the street.

What is the problem? Seattle and Dublin are roughly the same size and roughly equivalent population sizes so where is the disparity?

Why is it that Irish people take such little pride in their capital city that vomiting in the street and urinating down the nearest lane is considered a fact of life?

The same goes for littering, one most certainly does not walk down the street in Seattle and find gutters filled full of plastic bags, snack boxes and such.

That said Seattle is supposed to be the 'Heroin' capital of the States, so umm, somehow I don't accept that there is some quantum leap of disparity between the standards of living in one place and the other to endemnify the dissimilarities.

Thus one must point to the abject lack of pride and the administration of the place which is clearly lacking.

Take the roads for example. The roads in parts of the capital are very dangerous due to pot holes and poor maintenance, yet nothing, not a thing is done to protect the lives of the people using the roads. To engrain the problem, once a surface is resurfaced, it is quite common for company (x) to dig the road up and the fill it in, in such a way as to be a danger to motorists.
My point? Again it examplafies the neglect and lack pride taken in many things to do with Dublin, it's maintenance, it's facade and how it is percieved to the rest of the world.

Victor

Quite simply the answer to your point is that Dublin people prefer fashion (what it looks like on day one) over functionality (cleanability, usability, durability) - the footpath on Ranelagh Bridge is being replaced with nice expensive granite paving, while there are potholes in the same location.

Typedef

Hmm, slightly off topic, but from my perspective as a driver, I have to say that I think the roads have degrated quite significantly since the current Minister for Transport has taken over.

Perhaps that is paranoia, but I don't think so.

Mostly I think Dublin's litter problem, stems from Irish people's general contempt for everyone and everything to do with Ireland. If it is Irish, it 'must' be bad by definition, so why bother taking care of it? The attitude that "It'll do", shows through in the Road standards in this country and in the amount of litter, vomit and urine that ends up on Dublin Streets.

Moreover in the City Centre I believe it is the case that since the litter and vomit and urination is not happening "on my back doorstep", the people who make that pollution, don't really have any qualms about creating nor perpetuating it.