Mullingar moves up the IBAL rankings table

Mullingar has significantly improved its ranking in the latest Irish Business Against Litter (IBAL) survey, and has been deemed “clean”, finishing in 22nd spot in the ranking of 40 towns and cities.

The report from twelve months prior to this had Mullingar in 33rd place.

The final survey of 2021 by IBAL has proven a clean sweep for Midlands towns, with Portlaoise, Athlone and Tullamore, as well as Mullingar all deemed ‘Clean’. The overall winning town was Naas, which finished ahead of Portlaoise and Ennis to record its first win in the ratings.

The An Taisce report for Mullingar stated: “Mullingar has done enough to reclaim Clean status, with just one heavily littered site.

“The three approach roads created a positive first impression of Mullingar and Oliver Plunkett Street was very much deserving of the top litter grade.

“The heavily littered site was the Bring Centre at Council Car Park - it wasn’t so much littered but subject to the discarding of various items.

“There was a notable improvement along ‘Canal Bank, but it still has some way to go to get the top litter grade.”

The report for Athlone stated: “Well over half of the sites surveyed in Athlone got the top litter grade – examples of these included Golden Island Shopping Centre, the main shopping street, Athlone Training Centre and Athlone Castle – the exterior of the latter was exceptionally well presented and maintained.

“At the opposite end of the spectrum was the Golden Island (Athlone) Civic Amenity Site – this ‘managed’ facility wasn’t just casually littered but significant dumping had taken place. It didn’t get into this stage overnight and there was no change since it was surveyed earlier in 2021.”

In general, the report showed PPE litter at record levels, with an increase in the presence of both masks and gloves.

“It would appear that this litter is accumulating as the pandemic continues, as there remains an understandable reticence to pick up other people’s PPE,” says IBAL’s Conor Horgan.

“The disposable blue face mask has become a ubiquitous part of the landscape up and down the country. People have not moved to reusable masks and people are not taking care of their masks.”

According to Mr Horgan, international research has found PPE litter accounting for as much as 5% of all litter, and likely to have “a devastating, lasting effect on the environment”. Mask use is forecast to remain high into 2022.

There was a significant rise in other pandemic-related litter, such as coffee cups, while alcohol-related litter remained at previous levels despite hospitality reopening and the survey being conducted in winter.

IBAL has frequently criticised the failure of local authorities to clean up sites identified in its surveys as heavily littered, and this was again the case. Of 89 such sites highlighted in summer last year, only 33% had been addressed by the time of this most recent survey.

2021 was the 19th year of the IBAL Anti-Litter League.