'Typically solid performance' by Mullingar in litter survey

The latest litter survey by business group Irish Business Against Litter (IBAL) shows a “typically solid performance by Mullingar with six top ranking sites and just one heavily littered”.

It found that Athlone has lost its clean status, slipping to moderately littered. Tullamore has improved to fifth in the ranking of 40 towns and cities, while Mullingar and Portlaoise are also clean, in 14th and 25th respectively. Sligo finished at the top of the IBAL table for the first time in a study which showed that city areas in particular cleaned up in 2025.

The An Taisce report for Mullingar stated:

A typically solid performance by Mullingar with six top ranking sites and just one heavily littered. With so many top ranking sites, there are a few which deserve special mention: Mullingar Town Park is a lovely environment with all elements in very good order; County Buildings / Mullingar Arts Centre presented very well and a welcome features is the drinking water fountain at the main entrance; Oliver Plunkett Street was very much deserving of the top litter grade, where clearly a careful eye is kept on the various closed down / vacant premises.

The An Taisce report for Athlone stated:

Four heavily littered sites saw Athlone lose clean status. These included John Broderick Street, Paradise Row and Shops at corner of Southern Station Road and Ballymahon Road. They need to be addressed if the town is to move back up the rankings. Dublin Gate Street / Church Street were very freshly presented and deserving of the top litter grade. A vacant property at Southern Station Road showed notable improvement from a previous IBAL survey when this was heavily littered – this time around it was very much deserving of the top litter grade.

The An Taisce report for Tullamore stated:

Another excellent result for Tullamore with seven out of the ten sites getting the top litter grade. These included Axis Business Park (exceptionally freshly presented and well maintained); Market Square was attractively presented and well maintained with a virtual absence of litter throughout; the Main Street had some lovely features (colourful tiered planter boxes, attractive paving and trees looking very autumnal); Lloyd Town Park is certainly a gem – all aspects of were in very good order and clearly it’s a very well respected park environment.

The An Taisce report for Portlaoise stated:

Another solid showing by Portlaoise, despite the majority of sites falling short of clean status. Top ranking sites included the residential area of Aghnaharna Drive, Glass Bottle Bank at Dunnes Stores and R445 Approach from M7. There were four sites which just missed the top litter grade – not much effort would be required for this to be achieved. Improvements were noted at Carmody way – previously a heavily littered site, not so this time, but still somewhat littered. Harpur’s Lane and Environment was partly brought down by the derelict site, but not solely, as there were heavy levels of casually discarded litter.

The number of towns deemed clean last year rose to 28, and Sligo finished ahead of Leixlip, Westport and Monaghan. An Taisce, who conduct the surveys on behalf of IBAL, lauded the winning town for its consistently strong performance in recent years.

Waterford reclaimed its customary accolade of Ireland’s cleanest city, ahead of Galway. Cork City Centre was also clean. While urban areas still dominate the lower reaches of the rankings, 10 of the 13 surveyed showed an improvement in cleanliness in 2025.

“The most pleasing finding of 2025 was the progress made in socially disadvantaged areas,” said Conor Horgan of IBAL. “Even areas at the foot of our rankings have significantly lower litter levels than a year ago. Dublin City Centre and North Inner City, while still littered, are cases in point. The investment being made by Dublin City Council seems to be already paying fruit, and we are set to see further progress in 2026 if the council come good on a promise of replacing bags with bins across the city. That could be a landmark year in the fight against litter.”

There was a notable fall-off in the number of sites with large accumulations of litter or subject to dumping. “That continues a welcome trend we’ve seen in recent surveys and credit must go to local authorities for ridding our environment of these litter blackspots,” said Mr Horgan. This was the first IBAL survey where no bottle bank was deemed a litter blackspot.

The survey revealed that the Deposit Return Scheme continues to have a positive impact on the cleanliness of towns and cities, and there is a 10% drop in the prevalence of cans and plastic bottles compared to the previous year. These two types of litter are now 60% less common than when the scheme was introduced in early 2024.

Coffee cups remained commonly found forms of litter and were evident in one fifth of all sites surveyed. “A real disappointment in a generally positive year has been the likely collapse of coffee cup schemes in towns such as Killarney,” said Mr Horgan. “It is apparent that such schemes will only work with statutory backing. As our data today bears out, without government intervention, coffee cups will remain an unsightly and entirely unnecessary blot on the landscape across our towns. The prevarication from government on the issue is striking – a levy was promised four years ago – and sends out a worrying signal. Weaning ourselves off single-use coffee cups should not be such a big deal.”

The prevalence of disposable vapes, which are set to be outlawed over the course of 2026, was unchanged.