Shocking cost of illegal dumping is revealed

EVEN as Tallaght was applauded for its cleanliness in the latest litter league survey, the full costs of illegal dumping elsewhere in the county has been described as shocking.

The final litter survey of 2018 by business group Irish Business Against Litter (IBAL) released recently shows Tallaght and Dun Laoghaire cleaning up.

The report noted another excellent result for the Southside suburb, which it described as a beacon for other urban areas across the country to follow.

However, the cost of cleaning up illegal dumping endured by South Dublin County Council over the last four years has come to almost €6 million, it was revealed at a recent meeting of the council.

The Mayor of South Dublin, Cllr Mark Ward (SF), who has documented the issue on his Facebook page said illegal dumping was an “epidemic within our communities”.

“The dumping negatively impacts on all aspects of our lives,” he said. “This behaviour is affecting our quality of live and is having a bearing on the mental health of people living in the areas affected.

“The figures that I received today show an average of €1.4 million per year spent on removing illegal dumping across South Dublin County. This is almost €6 million over a three-year period.

“This is money that could be spent on enhancing the community. Parts of our communities are never litter free”

At the meeting of South Dublin County Council, the Chief Executive provided a full report on the overall costs of cleaning up of illegal dumping for over the last four years.

Total costs including payroll/fleet/materials and waste disposal came to €1,497,381 in 2015; €1,522,217 in 2016;  €1,439,542 in 2017 and  €1,327,760 in 2018.

“When I grew up in North Clondalkin it had many socio-economic problems such as unemployment, lack of community facilities, crime and drug use but it was clean in comparison to today,” Cllr Ward added. “How can we expect the children of today who will be the adults of tomorrow to respect their area when they have to walk through mounds of dumped waste on the way to school?”

“A lot of the green spaces in our communities that could be used for playing football and walking dogs and so on are unusable due to the amount of discarded waste.

“If you take a walk around different areas you will see scorched green areas from people burning waste.

“While I agree that there is no place within our communities for this type of behaviour more needs to be done to get to the root cause