South East tackles Roadside Litter

A roadside litter campaign was launched by Cathaoirleach Cllr Fitzgerald and Mayor Cllr Doyle in Inistoge with Tidy Town representatives from Thomastown and Inistioge last Wednesday. This new campaign is to eliminate roadside litter at source. It is a regional based programme involving three County Councils; Kilkenny and Wexford and Waterford City and County Council. The anti litter campaign slogan is 'bin it, don't fling it' and encourages road users to have more pride for the road which leads them home.

Cllr Fitzgerald said 'I am delighted to assist in officially launching the roadside litter campaign and support the objective to improve our local environment by the responsible litter management. It is no secret that some of our roads are destroyed with litter with road verges decorated with single use items such as takeaway wrappers, plastic bottles and coffee cups'.

The tidy town representatives, Frank Sullivan from Inistioge and Colin Castle of the Thomastown praised the collaboration between the three Councils. Cllr Doyle commented that while "both local communities look after their built up areas, the connecting road between Inistioge and Thomastown is heavily littered and is far too dangerous to litter pick with its heavy traffic volumes, dangerous bends and the absence of a hard shoulder, like many other roads around the county, roadside litter is accumulating and any campaign to eliminate litter is welcomed".

Kilkenny County Council conducted a litter audit and on a one kilometre stretch of roadside it can be expected to find 127 plastic bottles, 100 drink cans and 43 disposable cups. "Ideally it would be better to litter pick every stretch of roadside, but this task requires financial resources which are not currently available so in order to eliminate the problem at source, the Environmental Awareness Officers of the three Councils have combined efforts to highlight the issue and to encourage road users to change their behaviour and to bin litter rather than flinging it out the window" commented Bernadette Moloney, Environmental Awareness Officer of Kilkenny County Council who was also in attended the campaign launch.

The roadside litter campaign will see 12,000 anti litter themed tax disk holders distributed, the campaign will be highlighted in local and social media and is supported by tidy town groups in Wexford, Waterford and Kilkenny.