The latest nationwide survey by Irish Business Against Litter (IBAL) shows that Roscommon town has improved to 16th position in the anti-litter league and is considered ‘Clean to European Norms’.
The county town was languishing in 32nd position in the rankings this time last year and was judged to be ‘Moderately Littered’.
A spokesperson for An Taisce, who carry out the surveys for IBAL, commented: “A very strong result for Roscommon with seven out of the ten sites surveyed getting the top litter grade. These included Goff Street, the residential area of Hyde Court, Tesco and the two shopping streets, Goff Street and Main Street. The latter was particularly freshly presented with lovely paving, planter boxes, seating, bollards etc.
“The two most heavily littered sites are laneways – the laneway at Matrix Gym and laneway to the rear of Casey’s Circle K and close to Roscommon Fire Station”.
Over 90 per cent of towns surveyed were deemed clean compared with just 28 per cent of city areas.
Maynooth won out ahead of Mallow, Kilkenny, Clonmel and Ennis. Dundalk, ‘seriously littered’ at the very foot of the table, and ‘moderately littered’ Tralee, were the sole towns to miss out on clean status. Waterford and Galway were once again our only clean cities.
The survey also showed that PPE litter has not disappeared entirely, with masks found in 7 per cent of sites. There was a slight drop in the prevalence of alcohol cans and bottles, but coffee cups were present in 20 per cent of sites, which, IBAL maintains, backs up the need for a coffee cup levy. There was also an increase in cigarette butt litter, the survey showed.
Meanwhile, vaping devices were included as a litter type for the first time and were evident in 6 per cent of sites.
