Over the last two weeks we have noticed far more litter being dumped in the countryside. Now that we have reached early March, hedges are getting trimmed and the debris is showing up, whether it be cans or cigarette packs thrown from cars, plastic bags or other non degradable waste material.
Elsewhere, we have noticed people going out for drives and dumping bags, rather than pay the local authorities’ waste charges. The cost of waste is a huge factor and that is being used as the excuse.
In the city waste land or waste ground is suffering the same fate.
While we have more traffic wardens patrolling the streets to see that motorists pay their parking fees, we do not have the same resources to catch waste offenders. It is certainly a more difficult task to catch out people, who probably do it under the cover of darkness. Is there any identifying information there like a bill or address on a letter that might identify culprits? Could the public report more of those who dump litter?
The Green Party is now in Government and it makes a huge issue of the environment, carbon miles, recycling and other worthy efforts relating to life quality.
The appalling levels of litter appear to be a failure of our society. We may have more money today but the attitude to waste has not improved. More education in the schools is needed and more public information films on TV would also help. The BBC is very good at these measures, why not RTE?
More reporting and more enforcement are called for on this matter. The tourism industry should also be making more of an issue of the problem as it makes Ireland ugly.