Gala Moran’s Service Station: Back: Ms Hayden, Ms Doran and Barry Doran (Moran’s Gala). Front: Clodagh Shiels (Moran’s Gala, Cllr Dolan and Phil Brennan.

Reusable cups hit Castlepollard

Westmeath County Council cathaoirleach, Cllr John Dolan, recently launched the ‘Choose to Reuse’ project with Mace, Murray’s CheckOut, Moran’s Service Station and Tullynally Tearooms in Castlepollard.

These businesses are all offering a discount when customers bring in reusable cups for refills. The project is part of Westmeath County Council’s Choose to Reuse #consciouscup campaign, whose aim is to tackle the problem of single use cups and therefore prevent waste, reduce litter and encourage reuse.

Cllr Dolan said: “in Ireland we are disposing 200 million single use cups every year – that’s 22,000 single use cups daily – it is a huge waste of resources both in manufacturing the cups and in disposing of them after a short life.

“It is wonderful to see the businesses working with the local Tidy Towns Group leading the way to influence behavioural change, because that is the solution.”

Carol Hayden and Kathleen Doran from Castlepollard Tidy Towns contacted the businesses and invited them to get involved.

“Part of our work is litter-picking and coffee cups are one of the main offenders that we come across every day – this initiative is welcome and we are looking forward to seeing an improvement in our town,” said Carol.

“The National Tidy Towns competition includes the category ‘Sustainability – doing more with less’ and this project supports this category,” said Ruth Maxwell, Environment Department of Westmeath County Council.

“This category has proven difficult to secure marks in and results in Westmeath have ranged from six to 19 points out of 50 (Listowel, overall winner in 2018 got 23/50 marks), and we hope participation in this initiative will secure points this year.”