PAT OLIVER, chairperson of the National Spring Clean Campaign
What is the National Spring Clean?
My God, if you don’t know, you should be ashamed of yourself. It’s a straightforward clean-up campaign that does exactly what it says on the tin. It has been running for about 15 years now and attracted about 547,000 volunteers last year. We usually run out of places halfway through April, so I’d advise people to hurry up and register now.
If I’m just pulling plastic bags out of ditches, why do I need to register with you first?
You don’t, obviously. But if you register, we’ll provide you with a clean-up kit. That includes protective tabards to keep your clothes clean, colour-coded refuse sacks for recyclable and non-recyclable waste, litter pickers and gloves, as well as advice on sponsorship and publicity. We also cover groups for insurance.
The photographs on your website only seem to show children in school uniform.
Schools groups do tend to send us photographs more so than, say, disadvantaged groups or tidy towns committees. But we get all sorts pitching in. It could be anything from two or three people cleaning up a beach to a huge group going around and cleaning up an entire housing estate.
What do you ask the public to contribute? Is it one day, a weekend, or the entire month?
People can contribute whatever they like. Some groups will make a day of it and have a barbecue or something at the end as a reward for those who participate. Others will go out every day. It’s entirely up to you.
After 15 years, would you venture to tell us what town is the biggest dump in Ireland?
We don’t really measure those things. We’re not TidyTowns. We do monitor the anti-litter league for Irish Business Against Litter, though. Last year Trim won the overall award. It’s just a spotless town with fantastic litter wardens.
What towns have done not so well?
There was some controversy about the results last year for Letterkenny. The Donegal papers and some local councillors there were very critical of An Taisce. But we’d done the monitoring and we’d found what we found. We had no particular axe to grind either way. So I was astonished at the reaction. We were criticised for saying the town was littered. But the people who littered the town were the ones at fault. Not us.
What about those people who’ll say, well actually, I didn’t make this mess, why should I clean it up?
The advantages of taking part in National Spring Clean, first of all, are getting to live in a nice community. You keep your own house clean, so why not also keep your own street clean? Also, it’s a fun thing to do. The sun is out. It’s fun, it’s positive, it’s not expensive and it’s very rewarding. Some people will carp. Some people will say, I didn’t drop this litter, it was someone else. If that’s your attitude, fine. Don’t bother.
I’ve noticed that one of your sponsors is Wrigleys. There have been calls by some anti-litter campaigners for chewing-gum to be banned. Where would you stand on that?
Chewing-gum is one of those issues people have a range of opinions on. Obviously, some local authorities are very anti-chewing gum because they have the task of cleaning it up. There’s a problem, no doubt about that. From what I understand, Wrigleys are investigating the possibility of developing a chewing gum that doesn’t stick.
So you have no problem with accepting sponsorship from a companies that some perceive to be part of the problem?
There are hundreds of companies that could be accused of causing the problem. But I’m happy that Wrigleys are willing to offer us sponsorship. There are other companies we’ve gone to who obviously didn’t feel they were vulnerable on this issue. Wrigleys have sponsored us for many years and never looked for any exposure from it. I don’t think it’s an issue.
Finally, after 15 years, what’s the most original or inspiring anti-litter initiative you’ve witnessed during National Spring Clean month?
It’s very difficult to single out one in particular. The work that schools do each year never ceases to amaze me. But I suppose the project that impressed me the most was one we came across about three years ago, where a group of asylum-seekers undertook a massive clean-up operation off their own bat. They didn’t want any publicity. They just wanted to contribute. That’s what this event is all about.
You can register for a free clean-up kit at nationalspringclean.org
