A TOTAL OF 152 towns and election areas are going poster-free for the upcoming local elections in a bid to cut down on cardboard waste. 

Ireland will go to the polls on 24 May to vote in the upcoming local elections as well as the European elections on the same day. 

After an eight-week campaign, and with Tidy Towns groups involved, 91 candidates across the country have so far agreed not to erect election posters in their areas.

It represents 16% of all the tidy town entrants from 2018 and it is now calling for a national voluntary ban to ensure a nationwide poster free election. 

Corrugated plastic, commonly known as Corriboard is the material of choice for election posters, but take more than 400 years to biodegrade. 

According to campaign site PosterFree.ie: “In the 2014 local elections, 2038 candidates ran for 949 seats.

“An estimated 611,000 posters were erected with a combined cost of €3M with posters covering the equivalent area of 23 Croke Parks.

“This produced 366 tonnes of Co2, the equivalent of driving an average car non stop for 592 days.

In many areas, these posters were a safety and driving hazard, often obscuring important road signage. After 30 days of canvassing, the majority of these posters were sent to landfill.”

TD Mick Wallace took to Twitter to announce he would support the campaign.

He said: “To match our words with deed on environmental issues and in support of primary and secondary student’s #ClimateChange Campaign, I’ve decided not to use election posters in upcoming #EP2019.”

More information on the campaign can be found at PosterFree.ie and a full list of towns and areas which have gone poster free are below: