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Survey calls for litter to be addressed


The presence of litter at Lidl car park was criticised in the IBAL report.SHANNON finished in 20th position out of 60 towns and cities surveyed in the latest Irish Business Against Litter (IBAL) survey.

 

While Shannon came in 13th position last summer, the An Taisce assessors still felt the town had performed well.
“Another good result. Half of the sites surveyed in Shannon were clean to European norms, with the remainder moderately littered.
“Some of the top ranking sites included Ballycasey Business Park, Bóthar Mór Approach and Bóthar an Aerphort Approach. The Newmarket-on-Fergus approach road just missed getting the top litter grade. The town centre was moderately littered and care needs to be taken to ensure it doesn’t deteriorate.”
Five of the 10 parts of town surveyed were said to be clean to European norms. One of these was St Aidan’s school, which was praised in the report. “This was a very good site. It was clear of all litter and very well maintained,” it stated.
The report was also positive about Finian Park. “Despite the remnants of a bonfire, this was a very tidy residential environment.”
The other five areas surveyed were all described as moderately littered. There was some criticism of the Lidl car park.
“There was a very definite litter presence in the car park, mostly sweet papers, cigarette butts and chewing gum. There was just one litter bin and none in the car park, perhaps more are needed.”
The litter situation at the town centre should be addressed before it gets out of control, the assessors felt.
“The litter at this site was such that if not addressed, it could quickly become a serious litter problem.
“All of the litter was food/drink related, for example, plastic bottles, fast food wrappers and sweet papers. Chewing gum was very pronounced in some places.”
While the Newmarket-on-Fergus approach road was found to be moderately littered, this could be easily rectified, they felt.
“The litter on the roundabout prevented an otherwise good site from getting the top litter grade. With a quick clean-up, this could easily be achieved.”
At Shannon Town Council’s monthly meeting, which was held on Monday night, Mayor of Shannon Seán McLoughlin said that the town had performed well and he said that the fruits of a Community Employment Scheme, which the council initiated, were being seen.
After reading the report on Shannon, SkyCourt manager Pat Kelly said that fast food outlets in the town centre needed to put more effort into cleaning up after their customers.
“We clean the car park here every day but we have a number of take-away restaurants in the centre and inevitably there is litter from those places. They need to take responsibility for their patrons.”

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