Personal responsibility needed in tackling Tullamore litter problem

The problem of people illegally dumping household rubbish will be tackled this year by local authorities in response to the IBAL survey that ranked Tullamore the second-worst town for litter in the country. IBAL rated the Kilbeggan Approach Road, Birr Approach Road, Athlone/Clara Approach Road 'moderately littered'. This had lead to concerns that people are not taking personal responsibility when it comes to the fight against street littering and illegal dumping. 'We have to get tough on people dumping domestic rubbish and also throwing fast-food packaging from cars,' said Fine Gael Councillor Tommy McKeigue, who is also Chairman of Tullamore Town Council. 'We"ll be talking to the litter warden about it. Maybe if mobile cameras are put at the bottle bank it would act as a deterrent.' CCTV cameras could be placed in areas that are dumping blackspots and then moved to other areas once the dumping stops. Cllr McKeigue, along with the town engineer, this week inspected the sites listed in the IBAL report and he said he was very disappointed by the black bags dumped on the lane behind Pearse Park. 'Household rubbish is a big problem, people don"t want to pay for waste disposal even though it"s relatively cheap, especially if you make an effort to do the recycling correctly,' he added. 'The council is giving a lead but a small minority of people are not responding and it is down to personal responsibility.' Offaly County Council is also introducing a new brown bin for organic waste for householders this year, which will help to further cut down on non-recyclable waste. The problem with town and county boundaries when council staff are cleaning the approach roads to Tullamore should be resolved once the new by-pass opens. Cllr McKeigue said the by-pass will form a ring around the town which will then become the town council boundary. The Chairman of Tullamore Town Council branded the survey result as 'very unfair'. 'The basis of the IBAL report has to be seriously questioned if it is such a contrast to the Tidy Towns report. What expertise does IBAL have and what mechanism do their inspectors use when visiting towns? I have some of the towns which are at the top of the list in the IBAL report and I certainly would not consider them to be cleaner than Tullamore, in fact I would consider Tullamore to be a far cleaner town,' said Cllr Sean O"Brien. Tullamore Town Council spend €100,000 annually on street cleaning/litter control. Town Council staff are out every morning and have the town centre cleaned before the opening of business each day. New street cleaning equipment was purchased which speeds up the cleaning process and enables staff to then move outside the town centre to do further cleaning. IBAL has seen a drop in standards in Tullamore. In 2007, the town ranked 39th out of 55 in its survey.