Illegal dumping at bottle banks condemned

A local businessman has this week condemned a growing pattern of illegal dumping near bottle banks located on his property.Robert Bagnall, proprietor of Bagnall"s SuperValu on Main Street, has hosted the bottle banks on the site of the town"s shopping centre for the past six years, in partnership with Westmeath County Council.The bottle banks have, until the past few months, fulfilled their purpose for the past number of years, but recently Mr. Bagnall noticed that dumping of various items at the facility had increased.'We"re still cleaning up the hotel here after the floods, so to see something like this makes you wonder what"s next,' Mr. Bagnall said.'We"ve had a number of the bottle banks for the past six years, and over the last couple of months, I"ve noticed that people are beginning to throw any kind of rubbish around the banks, instead of using them for binning bottles and cans.'I contacted the Council"s Environment Section on Monday morning to let them know what"s been happening, but I"ve had no response yet.'Mr. Bagnall said that if there is no solution to the problem, then he may be forced to 'get rid' of the bottle banks, which are located just metres from the door of his SuperValu outlet.'You"d see every sort of rubbish thrown at the side of the bottle banks,' he continued. 'Bottles and cans are not too bad, because we can just throw them into the recycling bins. But then you have people dumping carpets, boxes, electrical goods and all sorts of other household rubbish. It"s an absolute disgrace.'The Kinnegad businessman maintains that most of the dumping happens at weekends, and during the night. 'We have a CCTV camera here, but it"s not much use when you can"t identify number plates.'People should really use their cop-on, and think of the traders who have to deal with the mess and the threat of vermin. We have to pay around €500 to fill a skip with the stuff and have it emptied.'I don"t know if it"s to do with the recession, and if some people are not prepared to pay for bins.'But the same people, Mr. Bagnall maintains, seem to have just gone 'haywire' over the past few months, abandoning reason and decency and using a public facility as a dumping ground.His sentiments were echoed by Coralstown"s Cllr. Pat McLoughlin (Fine Gael), Chairman of Westmeath County Council"s Mullingar Area Committee.'This is Robert"s private property which he has kindly made available to accommodate the bottle banks, which were put there for a specific purpose, and not to be used as a dumping ground,' Cllr. McLoughlin told the Westmeath Examiner.'The facility is being abused through what"s clearly a form of anti-social behaviour, and the people perpetrating these acts of large-scale littering are endangering the continued existence of this facility.'Cllr. McLoughlin said that a similar situation had developed at the recycling banks in Rathwire car park, and at other locations around the county. 'The Council are in the process of trying a pilot scheme of moving CCTV cameras around to different bottle banks in a bid to alleviate this kind of dumping,' he remarked.'The bottle banks in Kinnegad are a welcome facility for the town, and it"s very unfair on Bagnall"s SuperValu, and the other businesses in this shopping area, to have to deal with this behaviour. They"re trying to run a business.'I would ask the people of Kinnegad that if they see anybody dumping rubbish at the recycling bins, do not hesitate to intervene. If they ignore you, simply take their vehicle registration number and report them to the relevant authorities,' Cllr. McLoughlin said, in a stern warning to dumpers.Kinnegad branch comes third in national finalsCongratulations to Daniel Drum, Ronan Mulligan and Jonathan Beggan from the Kinnegad branch of Macra na Feirme who represented Westmeath in the Macra na Feirme/FBD Farmskills national final at Gurteen Agricultural College, Co. Tipperary last weekend (Saturday, August 23). The Westmeath team came third in the final competing in fencing, tractor skills, and general knowledge.