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THE latest results in the Irish Business Against Litter (IBAL) shows Tralee retained its ‘Clean To European Norms’ status, and is placed 17th out of 37 towns and cities in the country. It’s a fall of two places from the last survey in October.
Killarney is in 2nd place in the ranking. It is the second year in a row that KiIlarney has finished runner-up to Kilkenny, which took the crown for a record 5th time.
The An Taisce report for Tralee stated: “Tralee just hangs on to its clean status of last summer. Most of the town centre sites within were very much deserving of the top litter grade, including Tralee Town Park, Kerry County Museum, The Square / The Mall and Milk Market Lane – the latter was an excellent example of making a feature of a laneway.
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“There was one litter blackspot – the ‘miscellaneous’ site along the residential Mitchels Road – it wasn’t just casually littered but subject to heavy levels of dumping – it didn’t get into this state overnight. The Clothing Bank to the rear of SuperValu had significant amounts of clothing discarded to the rear of the clothing units.”
In all, litter levels rose in 24 of the 37 towns and cities inspected by An Taisce at the end of 2020, resulting in only 17 being judged to be clean – a fall of over 25% on last summer and in sharp contrast to just 3 years ago, when 80% were clean.
According to IBAL, the survey results are consistent with a trend in recent years. “The decline in cleanliness is less a case of the poorer areas getting worse, but of previously clean towns slipping to littered,” says IBAL spokesperson Conor Horgan.
“Covid is clearly a factor here, but we should never accept litter as inevitable. It comes down to people disposing of their waste without regard for their surroundings or their fellow citizens and it is entirely unnecessary.”
