.
Volunteer on the clean-up on Tuesday.
Tralee Tidy Towns were out again this week with staff from the Kerry Group head office braving the rains for a clean up of the River Lee walk as part of the an Taisce National Spring Clean.
Before this, Tralee Tidy Towns had undertaken large scale clean ups along the river bank on three separate occasions since February and had already removed 40 bags of litter.
National Spring Clean is one of Ireland’s most popular anti-litter programme and encourages every sector of society to actively participate and take responsibility for litter, by conducting clean ups in their own local environment during the month of April.
Continued below…
.
The Kerry Group staff were volunteering as part of the Kerry Group MyCommunity programme which has a number of elements that encourage and empower Kerry Group employees to work with and support the communities that they work and live in across the world.
Together, Kerry Group staff and Tralee Tidy Towns members removed 19 bags of litter from the banks of the River Lee – including a large number of bottles, cans and household waste which was dumped in this environmentally sensitive area.
Some of the bags of litter collected on Tuesday.
Tralee Tidy Towns Chair, Brendan O’Brien said: “We’re really heartened by Kerry Group staff coming out with us today for our National Spring Clean event – despite the rain. We really need this support.
“The litter picks that have been held along the River Lee walk were started by one of our own members, Tommy Keane, and they have been an eye opener for us all. We started this work last February.”
“The Friends of Able Tralee Tidy Towns CE Scheme and Kerry County Council TMD have also been working to keep this area litter-free for years. We removed a huge number of cans and bottles from the banks of the River Lee today and these would be taken out to Tralee Bay in river floods if we hadn’t removed them.”
“Tralee Bay is an important eco system and we’re working with partners like the Tralee Rowing Club, Transition Kerry, Irish Wildlife Trust (Kerry), MTU, Tralee Bay Wetlands, LAWPRO, Clean Coasts, our Friends of Able CE Scheme and Kerry Conty Council to highlight how special it is and how lucky we are to live near it and the rivers that flow into it. We are hoping the deposit return scheme will change people’s behaviour and they’ll return their cans to the reverse vending machine and earn themselves some money in doing so.”
Leah Clarke, Financial Control Graduate with Kerry Group said: “It was a great opportunity for our organisation to help support the local community and to help contribute to the National Spring Clean initiative. A special thanks to Tralee Tidy Towns for helping us to organise the event.”
Community Water Officer with the Local Authority Waters Programme, Colum Walsh, said; “The River Lee is a very important waterbody for Kerry and Tralee. The catchment stretches to the north east of Tralee and flows down to Tralee and out into the Tralee Bay an important SAC area and Bluedot catchment.
“The water quality status moves from good to moderate to poor status as the river moves through the catchment and the work being done by the tidy towns in conjunction with Kerry group is a very important step to improving water quality in the area by taking direct action on improving water quality in the catchment. The River Lee catchment is one catchment that is identified as an area for action to improve water quality.”
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
