€7,000 lost weekly to Dublin dumping

MORE THAN 2,000 refuse bags are dumped illegally in Dublin each week with a loss of €7,000 in revenue to Dublin City Council.

Figures released in recent days show just over a third of the 4,656 litter fines issued by the council for illegal dumping in 2010 were paid and just 49 convictions were secured in court.

Following a survey of illegally dumped refuse bags conducted by the council in April and May last year, it estimates some €6,668 is lost every week in waste collection revenue through the illegal dumping of bin bags.

About 2,200 bags are dumped illegally each week, containing about 20 tonnes of rubbish.

The main outlets for illegal waste disposal are dumping in street bins, communal waste bins and on private and public property; dumping by unlicensed waste operators; unauthorised disposal in council waste trucks; illegal burning of waste and misuse of the green bin system.

Peadar O’Sullivan, executive manager with the council’s engineering department, said there was a “great level of success” in pursuing dumping at bring centres, as car registration numbers recorded on CCTV could be used to find offenders. These were the “low-lying fruit” of illegal dumpers, he said.

“In many of these cases, we would go directly to prosecution instead of fines,” he said. Judges were “generally sympathetic” to the council in such cases as the dumping was so blatant, he added.

However, the council has particular difficulty tracking other types of illegal dumping as offenders have become more circumspect about leaving identifying materials such as household bills or addressed envelopes in bags.

Mr O’Sullivan said the problem was particularly acute in the north inner city, where the large number of multi-occupancy houses and “transient tenancies” made offenders difficult to trace.

Of the 4,656 fines of €150 issued for illegal dumping in 2010, just 1,795 were paid. Some 656 prosecutions were initiated, 49 convictions obtained and 42 out-of-court settlements made.