Thurles Town improves its standing in the IBAL (Irish Business Against Litter) league.
Just one of the three County Tipperary towns taking part in the Irish Business Against Litter League has achieved “litter free” status.
Thurles is ranked 30th of the 60 towns and cities in the IBAL League and has improved from its “moderately littered” ranking at the end of 2008.
The first round report from IBAL for this year rates Clonmel as “moderately littered” while Nenagh has fallen to “littered” status. Latter towns both lost their ‘litter free’ status from last year, finishing in 43rd and 49th respectively.
Litter levels throughout the country have improved once again with over 68% of Irish towns and cities now classed as “litter free” according to the latest litter survey by Irish Business Against Litter (IBAL). However, the group is warning that many areas are likely to suffer this summer with the large-scale reduction of weekend cleaning due to budget cuts. A further concern is that cities’ are not doing as well as the towns as the peak tourist season begins.
The survey of 60 towns and cities, conducted by An Taisce on behalf of IBAL, revealed Wexford to be Ireland’s cleanest town, ahead of Ennis. The number of “Litter Free” areas nationwide hit a record high of 41. Athlone and Mallow were the country’s sole litter black spots, with Arklow ‘seriously littered’.
Wexford is Ireland’s cleanest town with Athlone and Mallow the only ‘Litter Blackspots’ in the league.
Irish Business Against Litter (IBAL) was set up in 1996 as an alliance of companies who believe that litter has a significant impact on our economic well-being. The main sources of our prosperity – tourism, Foreign Direct Investment and our food industries – all depend on an image of Ireland as a clean and green island. We are now a high-cost destination for visitors, who deserve first-class standards of cleanliness.
IBAL believes that it is the job of Local Government to solve our litter problem. It is through enforcement of litter laws – not public information campaigns – that we will rid our country of this scourge.
Latest results show 36 out of 55 towns are Clean to European Norms compared to only 2 when the survey began in 2002.
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