the irish & litter

Solair

syklops wrote: »

Funnily enough the garbage collection here is very basic. We have black bins out front, that are collected every couple of days, everything goes into them. If they are full, you leave the bag next to them, and everything is collected. Its the one thing I never have to worry about is bin collection / waste disposal etc.

We don't even have to buy tags and what not. The city garbage collectors collect it. Its part of the cities duty to keep the place clean so they do. In Ireland, especially in Dublin it is too chaotic, with different colour bins, and different color tags that you have to remember to buy tags for as well. I remember sharing a house, the day before payday, the day before the bin gets collected, down to your last 2 euro, do you a) buy a bin tag, or b) buy dinner. The result, the bin was left to be collected the following week.

We had a great system in Spain. There were large dumster-sized bins with lids which lifted with a foot peddle. One for general waste, one for plastics, one for paper and a glass bank and a tank for cooking oil (this was treated and turned into biodiesel for the city's bus fleet!) as well as a small bin for toxic stuff like batteries.

You just put the rubbish into the bin as it cropped up and that was it. Costs were taken care of by the city taxation system. It was clean and there was no litter created.

The Brussels system uses colour-coded bags that you have to purchase in the supermarket. They are just put out on the street willy nilly and left blowing around the place.

We also have a monthly "chuck your fridge on the street day" which results in the whole pavement being cluttered up with broken down appliances, furniture etc and actually creates a major problem for anyone walking around.

It also looks wonderful to see broken down washing machines dumped directly opposite the European commission along side bags of rubbish!!

Everyone complains about it, including everyone from Brussels. Yet, it's just one of those things and that's how it's done and has always been done.

I think Europe-wide, we need to look at best practice and to learn from eachother's successes and mistakes when it comes to things like garbage collection.

Ireland's major problem is that the focus on making the polluter pay has resulted in a lot of illegal dumping as we are charging per bin lift.

I'd rather see a situation where there were much more frequent collections of household waste e.g. weekly rather than 2-weekly but where they charged only per weight of non-recyclables.

Compost bins should also be available and collected weekly and the use of compostable bags in them should be mandatory as they stink to high heaven if they are left any longer than that.

Dry recycling i.e. paper, card, plastics etc can be collected every two weeks without issue and glass even less frequently but actively rotting rubbish need to be picked up quickly and without fuss or it creates a major smell, health hazard and rodent attraction issue.

Also, I think we need to re-examine the charging system. The cost of waste disposal in many parts of Ireland is ridiculous.
The whole thing comes down to lack of local taxation and lack of funding for local authorities who try to then pull in funds via crazy charges on business and things like levies on use of landfills / other municipal services which leads to problems like dumping down back lanes.

As for litter in towns and cities, there are a hell of a lot of areas that are just not provided with litter bins. Then councils scratch their heads wondering why there's litter.

I remember being in a town in West Cork and we literally couldn't find anywhere to put food waste from our lunch which we'd bought in a local take away. There were just no bins at all.
Shops no longer provide them as they have to pay to dispose of the waste put in them and the councils seem to just not bother.

In suburban areas of Cork, Dublin etc there are usually simply no bins either. They are only provided in urban areas / suburban shopping areas.

I also think we need to move to the type of street-furniture that was used in Patrick's Street in Cork. There are attractive looking bins which contain a standard wheelie-bin inside. These can be collected and emptied in seconds by a normal truck with a wheelie-bin collection system. A lot of councils seem to have street bins that require council workers to have to deal with unbagged, raw waste. That's just gross, unhygienic, low-tech, inefficient and unfair on the workers.

It also means that a commercial company with the right trucks can collect them as part of their normal wheelie-bin run in suburban areas.

Teyla Emmagan

Fuinseog wrote: »

its not a class thing either . the upper classes will litter just as much as the tracksuited class.

Agreed, scumbaggy behaviour like that transcends class.

Tope

A friend of mine was waiting at the Luas stop recently and next to her was a mother with a small child who was eating a bag of crisps. The kid finished the crisps just as the Luas arrived, and before getting on board the mother instructed him to drop the bag on the ground. Like as if this was the correct way to do things!
What hope have we if parents are not only neglecting to teach children not to litter but actively encouraging it? (I've no idea if they were scumbags or middle-class types, and it makes no difference really!).

I was always taught to put my rubbish in a bin, even if it meant carrying an empty Coke can for miles. It drives me crazy to see people litter when there's a bin nearby, or when it's something you could stuff in your pocket till you get home.

Solair

The best one I ever saw was in a queue of traffic at the East Link toll bridge in Dublin a good few years ago. These lads were eating take-aways and chucked the bag out the window.

The woman in the car behind them got out, picked up the bag and sprinkled the chips all over them through their sunroof while calling them filthy..... (stuff I can't repeat!)...