Royal mess cleans up Grand as canals get a makeover

More than 200 volunteers turned out at the weekend to collect rubbish along the Royal and Grand Canals, as part of An Taisce’s National Spring Clean – an anti-litter campaign that takes place during the month of April every year.

Eric Conroy from Kimmage is part of the Grand Canal Biodiversity and Clean-up Group. He along with 25 others spent four hours on Saturday picking up rubbish along the Grand Canal from Dolphin’s Barn to Harold’s Cross.

“It is a bit disheartening to see rubbish thrown on what we have cleaned up, days later. It’s something we have to face in Irish society, we’re quite a dirty nation,” he said.

The National Spring Clean was launched 20 years ago and this year had more than 5,000 clean-ups organised across the country, involving the work of half a million volunteers.

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Individuals, groups, schools, residents’ associations and businesses can sign up for the Spring Clean online and are issued with a clean-up kit which includes bags, gloves and protective tabards.

A date is organised for the clean-up and rubbish is taken away by the local authority, which works in conjunction with the campaign.

Mr Conroy said there had been household waste dumped into the canal, along with food waste scattered alongside it.

‘They leave it behind’

“I don’t mind people drinking on the canal as long as they bring the waste home – but the problem is they don’t, they leave it behind,” he said.

Emlyn Cullen, programme manager for the National Spring Clean, said it was set up “at a time when litter was seen as a major issue in the country”.

“It was regularly number one in polls taken from foreign visitors regarding cons visiting Ireland,” he said.

“There was no focal point for people and groups who were already involving themselves in addressing littering issues by holding clean-ups, so the Spring Clean was started by An Taisce with the support of the Department of Environment to address this.”

Isabel Duggan Rofe, from Templeport, Co Cavan decided to organise a clean-up in April 2016 after people starting using an old disused railway line for fly-tipping.

“There were tractor cabs, there were toilets, televisions, satellite dishes, microwaves, everything. It was absolutely appalling.

“We registered for the National Spring Clean and I thought the rail line was the best place to start – and the community really got behind us on it.

“People came out in their droves, we had all ages from five years old right up to an 86-year-old helping out.

“Seven truckloads of rubbish were removed. Since then, people have respected it, but I suppose when they saw tractor cabs and bits of car on it, they just kept dumping there.”

Motivated

Joan Caldwell, from Ballyalbany, Co Monaghan, said a small group of adults from the area have been doing the annual clean-up for the last 10 years.

“There’s a group of four of us at the moment, we had five. Neil O’Lamhana passed away in 2016. He really motivated us to get out and do the litter pick every April,” she said. “So we said now that he’s dead we must continue it. He was really big into the environment and keeping the place litter up.”

Ms Caldwell said it is “frustrating” when litter reappears days after the group has tidied an area.