Election Posters - re-used or just dumped?

Sleipnir

With the government banging on about the great-unwashed (i.e. us) recycling everything we see i was wondering if the tens of thousands of election posters on every lampost across the country are stored and used again or are they just dumped?
It would be a huge amount of waste and they're all made of that corrugated plastic stuff.
Anyone have any idea how many of these are made?

seamus

Originally posted by Sleipnir
Anyone have any idea how many of these are made?

Well Royston Brady had 2,000 of them printed up. At €5-€6 a pop, they're not cheap.

I only know this because Gardai found 150 of them damaged in the back of a car belonging to two Nigerians (presumably a rival party/candidate paid these guys to go around tearing them down - what has Irish politics come to?). It said he paid for 2,000 of them.

So multiply that by the number of candidates.

davej

You think they store them for use in 4 years time and just scribble out '2004' with a big black marker?

davej

Sleipnir

do they all have the date? Don't think so.

No, you're dead right, feck 100,000 of them into a dump. what the hell.

swiss

I could be wrong here but if I recall correctly during the last general election there was a consensus that political parties would take down their posters after the election and recycle them.

Frankly, it would be the only reasonable thing to do. If politicians want to send a message to people that we should reduce, reuse and recycle, then of course they should do the same.

Unfortunately, I don't actually *know* if they are acting in accordance with this consensus. Does anyone know what actually happens to those posters once they are taken down?

Sleipnir

They may have taken down the posters after the last election but they left behind thousands upon thousands of the plastic ties that hold them up.
If you walk down any street I can guarantee that you'll find at least one on almost every single lampost.

Victor

The Green Party's posters are neither election nor candidate specific, so presumably can be reused.

Previously most were dumped (but quite a few burned where they stood after a Saturday nights drinking), although McDowell's 2002 posters were simply papered over for Nice II.

Genghis

Have a look at the state of the posters at the end of the campaign - they typically would not be fit for re-use (especially if there had been wet or stormy conditions during the campaign). If you put these back up there would be the risk of littering.

Did I not hear somewhere that Dublin County Council (not sure about others) proposed to charge candidates a 'licence and disposal' fee, whereby they would allow candidates put up posters on condition that they paid the council to take them down on their behalf at the end of the campaign (and supposedly dispose of them in the appropriate way)?

sceptre

As seamus said, those things aren't cheap. I 'd imagine that any politician with any copon would keep them and use them next time. If I thought they weren't doing that I'd be both annoyed and suspicious of where this bloke with money to burn is getting his funding.

In munsterland, Kathy Sinnot is definitely recycling posters from the last general election, as are most of the councillors (Mallow councillors are evidently poor so they're even re-using their badly painted VUTE FOOR MEEEE signs. Good for them)

sceptre

Originally posted by Genghis
Have a look at the state of the posters at the end of the campaign - they typically would not be fit for re-use (especially if there had been wet or stormy conditions during the campaign). If you put these back up there would be the risk of littering.

Lots of the more recent ones are made from plastic. The independent councillors and candidates in Limerick are almost all relying on cardboard but the party-funded candidates have gone with sexay plastic.

LFCFan

do the rules not state that they are only allowed 2 posters per pole? There are poles all over the place with 3 and I've even seen one with 5 on it.

Victor

Originally posted by sceptre
As seamus said, those things aren't cheap. I 'd imagine that any politician with any copon would keep them and use them next time. If I thought they weren't doing that I'd be both annoyed and suspicious of where this bloke with money to burn is getting his funding.

Hey, Royston even has shiny "Royston" jackets for his [strike]pimps[/strike] campaign volunteers.

Originally posted by LFCFan
do the rules not state that they are only allowed 2 posters per pole?

In Dublin City the Code of Practice (non-binding) says 2 posters per candidate per pole.