The latest survey from business group Irish Business Against Litter (IBAL) reveals Wexford town is again ‘Clean to European Norms” and in 17th spot in the ranking of 40 towns and cities across Ireland, up from 22nd position last year.
The An Taisce report for Wexford stated:“A very solid performance by Wexford with eight out of the ten sites surveyed scoring very well. These included the approach roads, North Main Street (an incredibly clean shopping street), Riverwalk / Quay (a lovely waterside amenity with all aspects in excellent order) and ‘The Rocks’ Heritage Trail. As with the last few years, there are two sites which have been consistently heavily littered, bringing down the overall ranking for the town: Rope Walk Car Park remains heavily littered and Bring Facility, Tesco was not just littered but dumped upon.”
Overall, two-thirds of towns were clean, which was up on 2024. Naas was once again top of the ranking of 40 towns and cities, ahead of Ennis and Killarney. Only 4 areas were branded littered or seriously littered – the lowest number on 5 years. Both Dublin and Cork city centres have improved in advance of the peak season for visitors.
“It is encouraging to see that our main city centres – Dublin and Cork – have improved as we welcome summer visitors to our country. Clean streets are imperative, given the challenges facing Ireland as a high-cost destination,” says IBAL’s Conor Horgan
Dublin’s North Inner City, seriously littered, remains rooted to the foot of the rankings.
Conor Horgan comments: “No progress is likely in the North Inner City without a ban on bags. We need the Council to come good on its intention to convert the entire city to bin collection services. In addition, it is high time that appropriate legal changes were brought into effect to allow the council to pursue those responsible for littered basements, an age-old blight on our Capital City.”
One year on from the introduction of the Deposit Return Scheme, plastic bottle and can litter is down 50% on previous levels but was still found in 20% of the 500-plus sites surveyed across the country. “We hope that the scheme will see the disappearance of this litter, but statistics so far do not bear this out. Cans and plastic bottles are far from a rare sight on our streets and in our hedgerows,” says Conor Horgan.
While the prevalence of coffee cups on our streets remains stubbornly high, there was a fall-off in disposable vape litter. The UK and Northern Ireland outlawed disposable vapes earlier this month and a ban here is likely in the coming months.
The survey found the main streets of towns to be generally clean, as were heritage and amenity sites. Residential areas, bus and train stations and recycle facilities were most likely to be littered.
