THE MINISTER FOR the Environment Phil Hogan has allocated €900,000 to county councils all over the country in a bid to get them to clean up their act.
The money will come out of the Environment Fund which will go towards raising public awareness about the litter issue and promoting anti-litter and anti-graffiti activity at local levels.
He also launched the 2012 National Litter Pollution Monitoring System Report that showed there has been an increase in the number of deemed to be litter free – from 9.9 per cent in 2011 to 10.4 per cent in 2012 – the highest level ever achieved.
It was found that over three in every five areas surveyed were slightly littered, a decrease of 3.8 per cent on 2011 levels.
However, the percentages of moderately and significantly polluted areas have increased by 2.6 per cent and 0.8 per cent to 22.9 per cent and 3.2 per cent respectively.
The percentage of grossly polluted has decreased slightly from 0.4 per cent to 0.3 per cent – the lowest level ever.
Cigarette related litter (52.7 per cent), food related litter (19.1 per cent), packaging litter (13.2 per cent), and sweet related litter (7.3 per cent) were identified as the main constituents of litter nationally. While pedestrians (39.3 per cent), motorists (18.6 per cent), retail outlets (10.8 per cent), fast food outlets (6.5 per cent) and gathering points (6.0 per cent) were identified as the main causes factors of litter around Ireland.
The Minister urged local authorities to continue to work together with community groups and schools to tackle litter and graffiti problems, pointing out that, “the appearance of our cities, towns, villages and our rural and coastal environments is crucial to both social and economic activity across the country”.
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