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TRALEE has lost its Clean To European Norms’ status in the latest IBAL Anti-Litter League, Survey.
Tralee is now place 29th out of the 40 towns / cities surveyed and is classed as ‘Moderately Littered’ in the An Taisce report. Killarney is place 20th in the table and is ‘Clean To European Norms.
The following is the report from An Taisce which states the presence of a couple of seriously littered sites has prevented Tralee having a higher ranking.
These were at Tralee Train Station and Market Street. Top ranking sites included a couple of approach routes, Main Street / The Mall (excellent streetscape) and Tralee Town Park described as a wonderful park environment with many different elements within.
Continued below…
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N21 Approach Road: Grade A. A very clean and freshly presented route into Tralee, creating a positive first impression of the town. The greenery on the roundabout is a lovely feature.
R875 Approach: Grade B. (from McDonald’s to hospital entrance). There was a very definite litter presence along this route, all manner of food related litter, cigarette butts and obvious vaping devices. The area close to the car wash premises wasn’t littered but the area at DJ Fitzgerald was. Grass / flower areas were poorly presented and maintained – it would seem that cars parking on the grass is causing muddy grass area.
Tralee Train Station: Grade C+. On first impression, all appeared in good order at the train station. The main entrance area and the centre of the car park clean but what really brought down the litter grade were the litter accumulations along the perimeter wall / base of shrubbery – the appearance was of an area which lacked a thorough cleaning in some considerable time. As well as a variety of food related items, there were cigarette butts and alcohol cans / bottles. Hopefully, once the construction work is complete that it will be combined with a big clean-up job.
North Circular Road: Grade B. (from Jackie Power Roundabout to junction with Rock Street). The most obvious litter items along this mixed-use road was cigarette butts, with lower levels of chewing gum and sweet wrapper. The butts were most pronounced on the side of the road with the houses, where one resident was observed sweeping up directly outside her house. The area outside Nolan’s was spotless, not so outside Dunnes Stores. The provision of litter awareness notices / cigarette butt notices could make a big difference here.
Caherslee Approach Road: Grade A. A freshly presented route with road surface / markings / signage in good order. There was a complete absence of litter throughout the area surveyed.
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Market Street: Grade C+. This was a mixed site in that some areas were cleaner then previous IBAL survey (e.g., the accumulated litter has been removed from the wire mesh) but there is a very heavy vaping related litter presence, particularly at the laneway next to Sullivans Pharmacy and cigarette butts were very obvious in the old cable lock next to Ladbrokes.
Recycle Facility at SuperValu: Grade B. The overall impression was generally a much better one than some previous IBAL surveys, particularly at the bottle bank area. This time around, it was the area surrounding the Kerry Hospice Clothes Bank which brought down the litter grade.
Tralee Town Park: Grade A. A wonderful town park environment which wasn’t just very good with regard to litter but attractively presented and maintained. Some parts of the park were in a more ‘natural’ state, as is increasingly seen in park environments throughout the country.
Main Street / The Mall: Grade A. The streetscape along the Main Street was excellent – attractive paving, wooden seating, large planter boxes, street-lamps, silver bollards etc. This area was very much deserving of the top litter grade.
Tralee Food Court: Grade B. A definitely littered site, unsurprisingly the most obvious litter was fast- food related, with lower levels of a wide variety of other food related items, some promotional flyers, plastic ties and face-masks. The bins at the back were overflowing with crows further contributing to the issue and there was litter in the shrubs.
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