Littering and dumping of domestic waste

Andrew Murphy

Registered User
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83
I may be showing my age but when I was a sprog I was given a clip around the ear if I dropped litter, or heaven forbid threw rubbish out the car window.

I live in the country and walk my dogs on a regular route on local roads. I will often take my litter picker and will fill a coal sack with plastic bottles, drinks cans and other debris discarded from motor vehicles. It is unfortunate I have to do this and it really grates me that people have absolutely no consideration for the impact of their selfish actions.

Today was the final straw however. My property backs on to a fairly busy local road and I found three bags of domestic waste dumped over my boundary stone wall. I am livid.

What makes people think this is acceptable behaviour and what can be done about it?
 
Hi Andrew, Being a daily walker like yourself, I too collect litter and dispose of it in my domestic bins. I often see people dumping stuff from cars and trying to stop it is like trying to stop the sun rising. Recently, I found a plastic bag full of household rubbish dumped over the wall of our front garden. Leper being leprous combed through the rubbish to find several birthday cards dumped complete with addressed envelopes. Also, I found a job identification badge, some utility bills etc all containing the same surname and address.

Having made enquiries I visited the workplace of the main name I came across and presented his bag of rubbish to him in front of several of his work colleagues. He was not very impressed and initially denied all knowledge. However, the evidence was overwhelming and eventually he took it on the chin having been guffawed by several of his work colleagues. Leper 1 - Litter Lout 0.
 
It calls into question the whole "green wave" thing we saw in the voting for european elections. Littering and dumping is worse now than ever before and the young are the worst you see it around schools, they go down to the local centra buy a deli roll and a drink and then discard it on the way back to school.
 
I bet the cars that dumped them don't have insurance, tax, NCT either... this is why we need zero tolerance for low level stuff.
 
I find that people from a rural background are more likely to litter.
Do others also find this?
 
I find that people from a rural background are more likely to litter.
Do others also find this?

North Inner City Dublin shows up as pretty bad in reports, and on my visual evidence of the parks & river in the area...
 
Yea, but Northsiders...

Well you've insulted rural people, and now Northside Dubliners... sure why stop there... there's a few more obvious targets you haven't hit yet.
For example, the dirtiest place on the Northside I have seen is inhabited by people not from the Northside. There's a few horses around too.

And on the other hand, Malahide is a Tidy Towns winner.
 
Well you've insulted rural people, and now Northside Dubliners... sure why stop there... there's a few more obvious targets you haven't hit yet.
For example, the dirtiest place on the Northside I have seen is inhabited by people not from the Northside. There's a few horses around too.

And on the other hand, Malahide is a Tidy Towns winner.
Yea, but Malahide is an exception.
You're right though; many of the worst areas of the Northside are populated by Boggers. ;)

I was born in Tallaght. We clean up after our own horses there.
 
The guy I "caught" was unfortunate. He didn't know who he was taking on. Bless his little heart. He lived within a half mile of our house. He had all the trappings of being respected, nice car, manicured garden, well dressed, etc. But, the bottom line he is a litter lout. It isn't the clothes maketh the man.

When I confronted him at his place of work (first having informed the counter officer who was silently in schadenfreude of what I was going to do) he denied all knowledge. I then threatened reporting the matter to the local gardaí showing him supermarket till receipts complete with loyalty card number from the rubbish bag and informing him that I bet the address would tally with his. He backed down fast.

I cycle,drive and walk quite a bit every day. I see litter being discarded. I see litter bins that are already full with people next to them trying to fill them more. Farmers Markets are where the main culprits gather. Disposable coffee/tea cups, food paper, sharp wooden skewers are strewn nearly everywhere. There is no point confronting the litter louts as they'll leer at you like you were Dracula. It is too much to ask them to take their litter home in their immaculately clean cars and dump it.
 
A friend of my son always confronts people when he sees them littering. He's from North inner city Dublin, is 6'3", weight about 18 stone (not a pick of fat on him) and isn't a stranger to physical confrontation. He's thrown lighting cigarettes and nearly empty coffee cups back into cars, made people pick up chewing gum and other letter and is generally abrasive and confrontational about litter.
He puts a smile on my face.
 
It certainly seems that littering and dumping is worst in rural areas. May be it is because people think they won't be seen or caught? Having said that the tidy towns volunteers are certainly kept busy in the towns dotted around us, so I'm not sure which is worse.

@odyssey06 is right that there should be zero tolerance for this. More education and a big stick!
 
Recently witnessed a man in Kilmainham leave his house and drop off his household waste in the Dublin city council bins outside his house.

:rolleyes:
 
country people (wide open fields )coming into town with their dogs to walk them, letting them go on the streets and walking away
 
A friend of my son always confronts people when he sees them littering. He's from North inner city Dublin, is 6'3", weight about 18 stone (not a pick of fat on him) and isn't a stranger to physical confrontation. He's thrown lighting cigarettes and nearly empty coffee cups back into cars, made people pick up chewing gum and other letter and is generally abrasive and confrontational about litter.
He puts a smile on my face.

Just because you see him as some vigilante hero, does not make this behaviour acceptable. Your friend is a thug.

Throwing lighted cigarettes into cars is extremely dangerous.

This guy probably needs psychiatric help.
 
Just because you see him as some vigilante hero, does not make this behaviour acceptable. Your friend is a thug.
Throwing lighted cigarettes into cars is extremely dangerous.
This guy probably needs psychiatric help.

Smoking lighted cigarettes in a car must be extremely dangerous too... what goes around comes around and Nemesis doesn't always play nicey nice.
 
Relatively easy solution.

Add a refuse/recycling service fee to the property tax.
The company you sign up with applies for this payment from revenue.

Then you pay just for the actual waste itself.

As the service fee (probably €200) would include recycling collection, the additional cost just for the rubbish would be quite low and make dumping unattractive as the saving would not be substantial.
 
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