DCC allocates extra resources to street cleaning and litter collection

Dublin City Council has announced that it has allocated extra resources to help clean streets and collect litter in areas of high footfall in the city-centre commercial district.

There are 11 street washing vehicles in operation in the city on a weekly basis and the City Council intends to add a further three vehicles and wash crews over the coming weeks, a spokesperson says.

Additional staff will also be rostered in the coming days.

“Dublin City Council will continue to monitor the effectiveness of its waste management service and will assign extra resources to target specific areas.

“The City Council very much welcomes the summer influx of tourists to the city, as well as the recent fine weather and the increase in outdoor dining. However, this does present some challenges.

“At present the City Council’s Waste Management Services section has over 500 operational staff, servicing approximately 3,400 litter bins.

“They also provide a robust street cleaning service to the city, particularly to the city centre commercial district area.”

The council says that over 100 staff are rotated between three shifts 24 hours a day Sunday to Friday, and from 5am to 9pm on a Saturday.

All litter bins are serviced several times each day and all pavements are mechanically serviced by mechanical sweepers.

Manual sweeping also takes place by staff on hand carts while street washing is provided by the night shift five nights per week (Sunday to Thursday).

Priority pedestrianised streets such as Grafton St, O’Connell St and Henry St are also deep-cleaned with a buffer machine.

Additional supplementary cleansing is provided by a third party contractor seven days a week and financial resources have been allocated to continue this service so that the city pavements can be cleaned in these high footfall areas as quickly as possible.

Recently two further street washing crews were added to the day time shift work (6am-2pm), according to the spokesperson.

“Every effort is made by the Waste Management Services section to keep the city centre’s cleanliness to as high a standard as possible.

“The number of staff working in the section has increased from 499 in Jan 2021 to 527 in June 2023. The number of permanent bins has also increased from 3,158 in Jan 2021 to 3,397 in June 2023.”

The Waste Management Services section also places temporary bins at known hotspots in the city and responds to more than 30,000 requests annually from members of the public through the Citizen Hub website https://citizenhub.dublincity.ie/