Naas has been crowned Ireland’s cleanest town for 2021 by business group Irish Business Against Litter (IBAL). Its latest survey of 40 towns and cities showed nationwide litter levels having risen slightly, with cities again faring particularly badly. PPE litter was found to be at its highest level since the pandemic began.
This is the first time Naas comes to the top position. An Taisce, who conduct the surveys on behalf of IBAL, found every site examined in the Kildare town to be “virtually free of litter”. Portlaoise and Ennis hold the second and third positions respectively in the list.
The 9 towns which are cleaner than the European norms are:
- Naas
- Portlaoise
- Ennis
- Leixlip
- Arklow
- Dun Laoghaire
- Fermoy
- Longford
- Kilkenny
The country’s litter black spot is still Dublin’s North Inner City which comes on the bottom line. The worst areas included the Canal at Spencer Dock, with “fencing, old bicycles and discarded domestic items” among the litter in the water, Crinian Strand, where “huge swathes of all manner of litter were strewn along the pavement, along with bags of rubbish”, and Aldborough Place, where “bags of rubbish dominated”. Even with this, the surveyors indicated that the town has shown a slight improvement from last year.
Galvone in Limerick city improved significantly, rising 6 places in the rankings, but the urban areas of Ballymun, Tallaght and Cork Northside all fell back.
Cork and Limerick City Centres, both littered, showed a deterioration on the previous survey, while Dublin City Centre fell to heavily littered. Galway City lost its clean status, leaving Waterford as the country’s only clean city.
As a result of the pandemic, the PPE litters have been siginificantly increased everywhere. Masks and gloves account for most of them.
“It would appear that this litter is accumulating as the pandemic continues, as there remains an understandable reticence to pick up other people’s PPE,” says IBAL’s Conor Horgan.
“The disposable blue face mask has become a ubiquitous part of the landscape up and down the country. People have not moved to reusable masks and people are not taking care of their masks.” he added.
There was a significant rise in other pandemic-related litter, such as coffee cups, while alcohol-related litter remained at previous levels despite hospitality reopening and the survey being conducted in winter.
2021 was the 19th year of the IBAL Anti-Litter League.