FURTHER to a recent Southern Report on the appalling litter problems in Cork, Mr Joseph Nugent Jnr, a retired Irish American living in Athlone, writes to say that with the exception of Galway, he has been stunned by the volume of litter in Irish cities, but in particular in Cork.
"When I was there between February and May 1966, the litter was everywhere I walked in what could be a beautiful city ... it was mindboggling - I could not wait to get out of there. We had the same problem in America, at least on the east coast where I lived 20 years ago.
"In the 1970s, the problem was corrected almost overnight as follows: enactment of container deposit laws ... which mandated a 5 or 10 cent deposit on each soft drink and beer container... as it was correctly estimated that close to 50 per cent of roadside rubbish was made up of these containers; public service announcements on television, oriented towards the young, and roadside crews, usually made up of low security prisoners, who volunteered to `police' the medians and side shoulders of roads ...
"All three programmes were quite successful, with a handful of entrepreneurs making a fortune in the handling of containers. One Irish American, Mr Bill Connell, whose mother was born in Sligo, became a millionaire in Massachusetts from what is euphemistically known as `resource recover'.
"I have been watching the pronouncements of the Greens and the Government and have been very surprised that no one has even mentioned the container deposit approach ... It is worth a try, as it seems to me that, in a country that benefits so much from its natural beauty, the problem has reached critical dimensions," Mr Nugent wrote.
Mr Nugent is right, and something must be done about it. Is there any local authority willing to give his suggestion a try?