County councils up and down the country plead with their local communities to not abuse the various recycling facilities which they have put in place at great cost to the same communities.
We are not supposed to leave rubbish or waste behind us at them. Littering is an offence under the Litter Pollution Act and liable to an on the spot fine of €120 / €150 and a serious offence fine of €3,000 And they ask us to bring our bags or boxes home with us and to reuse them. And most people do.
Leaving your recyclable items beside the bins, rather than placing them in the containers provided is illegal and costs time and money to clean up. Even when banks are full, it is illegal to leave your items beside the bank – go to another site or return when the banks have been emptied.
If a bottle / can bank is full, you can free text to 087 3737052 for banks to be emptied.
I travelled down from Galway today in daylight and I passed several such recycling facilities on the way. Honest to God there wasn’t a bottle or a can astray in any of them. I would take notice of this kind of thing because we have a decade-long history of this type of facility abuse and I get calls to photograph and publicise it.
We’re the pits when it comes to this kind of behaviour. The facility is Kerry County Council property but it can’t be blamed for our lack of care for the environment or of consideration for our neighbours.
It’s a seasonal thing and I got a text this evening from Fiona Roche telling me that I might like to photograph the state of the facility here. This was followed by a photograph of the badly abused bins languishing under a nearly full Moon – it’s full tomorrow night !
While I was taking a few photographs of the facility tonight a couple of cars pulled alongside the bins with back seats laden with empty bottles. I doubt if they went in search of another such service or took their cargos back home with them.
On the other hand if the recycling company was on the ball they should realise that their services are availed of more at this time of year that any other. They know that it’s simply not good enough that people are left with no place to dispose of their recyclables legally. It did take the authorities a long time to convince us that recycling was the way to go. Now we’re going in our droves and they can’t handle it. We’ve loaded our cars with bottles and cans to do the right thing and we’re confronted with a mess and we’ve no Plan B.
There are small breweries popping up all over the country at the moment it seems. If any of those behind the ventures need ‘proof’ that there’s a market for their produce they can get in touch with Fiona or myself and we’ll send them all the photographic proof they need. God Bless our Throats !
