Kilkenny secures top five place in IBAL litter survey - with five locations praised in particular

Kilkenny has secured another top five finish in the latest IBAL litter rankings, deemed clean, but slipping slightly from joint second last year to fourth place.

The final litter survey of 2023 by business group Irish Business Against Litter shows Kilkenny retaining its top five position in the ranking of 40 towns and cities nationwide. IBAL says the impending Deposit Return Scheme will improve cleanliness levels further but is calling for action on coffee cups.

The An Taisce report for Kilkenny said it was 'as always a very strong performance by Kilkenny with eight out of the ten sites surveyed getting the top litter grade and no heavily littered sites'.

Top-ranking sites included bottle bank at St Canice’s carpark, an area that has previously been criticised by adjudicators in tidiness competitions. Other highly-praised sites included St Kieran’s Street, The Mall, High Street and Kilkenny Castle Park.

"These sites weren’t just good with regard to litter, but the overall presentation and maintenance of same was excellent," said IBAL's report.

"A fairly recent addition to Kilkenny is the lovely Riverside Garden and Skatepark site – it has been very attractively laid out but not nearly as clean as neighbouring sites."

While litter levels rose slightly nationwide, over 60% of towns surveyed were deemed clean in 2023, with Maynooth edging out Mallow and much improved Sligo to take the title of cleanest town.

Conor Horgan of IBAL, says there is improvement across the board: “For years our worst performing areas were deemed either ‘litter blackspots’ or ‘seriously littered’. This baseline would seem to be changing, with ‘littered’ becoming the bottom tier. Cleanliness begets cleanliness, and there is reason to hope the improvement will continue in future years," he said.

COFFEE CUPS
A surprise finding of the IBAL study was the rise in coffee cup litter, which is now close to peak-Covid levels. Coffee cups were found at over 30% of the 500+ sites surveyed.

“We are concerned at potential delays in introducing a coffee cup levy,” says Conor Horgan.

“We believe this action is needed to stamp out a product which is out of step with the circular economy. Irrespective of how recyclable or compostable take-away cups are, these statistics show too many of them are ending up on our streets.” IBAL says Killarney has benefited from having banned single-use cups last year, a move embraced by the community.       

IBAL has welcomed the introduction next month of the Deposit Return Scheme as a potential game-changer in the fight against litter, much as the plastic bag levy was. The scheme will see consumers pay a deposit of 15 cent on cans and up to 25 cent on plastic bottles, refundable on their return.

“This latest survey shows these items to be present in just under half of the hundreds of sites we surveyed. This scheme will remove a large portion of this litter and bring about a significantly cleaner environment in 2024. While there may be some inconvenience for consumers, the prize is a very real, and a very immediate one," he said.

There was another significant rise in the prevalence of disposable vapes, highlighted previously as an emerging source of litter. These were found in more than 10% of all sites covered.