Irish beaches are at their cleanest in eight years, according to Irish Business Against Litter (IBAL).
The group’s latest survey of Ireland’s coasts and inland waterways, conducted by An Taisce for the business group, awarded 17 of 33 the beaches, harbours and rivers monitored clean status.
The result marks a 50 per cent improvement on the last survey despite the warm weather this summer bringing large numbers to the coast.
The number of areas classified as littered dropped from 11 to three, with cigarette butts, sweet papers and fast food wrappers the most commonly found discarded items.
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Sites falling into this category are Dingle Harbour in Co Kerry; Dog’s Bay beach in Co Galway; and White Bay Beach in Co Cork.
Among the popular sites to be awarded clean status were Brittas Bay in Co Wicklow; Curracloe in Co Wexford; Bundoran in Co Donegal; Killiney in Co Dublin; Strandhill in Co Sligo; and Tramore in Co Waterford. None of the sites surveyed were placed in the lowest category: heavily littered.
Portmarnock in Co Dublin registered a dramatic improvement on its previous ‘littered’ rating, while similar improvement was noted at Blackrock Castle and Castletownbere in Co Cork.
However, Dingle experienced a demotion to littered, as did Dog’s Bay beach and White Bay.
“This is by far the most favourable result we have seen in eight years of coastal surveys,” said Conor Horgan of IBAL.
“The Trojan and ever-expanding work of clean coasts groups and other volunteers is instrumental in this, as is the investment by councils in facilities around our beaches.”
Legislative measures such as the tethering of caps to plastic bottles and the deposit return scheme have contributed to the improvement, IBAL said.
The first coastal survey conducted since the introduction of the deposit return scheme shows a 30 per cent drop in the volume of these items being discarded. Under the scheme customers pay a refundable deposit on plastic bottles and cans and claim a credit when they return the bottle or can to a reverse-vending machine.
Vapes were less prevalent than in previous studies, but coffee cup litter remained high, with cups found in 42 per cent of surveyed sites.
“The coffee cup levy seems to have died with the last government, but these findings show that the case for it has not died,” said Mr Horgan, adding that coastal areas would benefit from a coffee cup-free policy similar to Killarney’s model. In 2022, the Co Kerry town became the first town in Ireland to phase out single-use coffee cups.
An Taisce’s annual call to action – the Big Beach Clean Up – is expected to attract more than 600 groups and 15,000 volunteers nationwide to Irish beaches from September 19th to 21st.
