May 17th, 2019
Less than half of litter fines issued by local authorities
between 2012 and 2017 were paid, a new report into Ireland’s waste has found.
The report from the environmental charity VOICE Ireland follows
a 10-month investigation into how local authorities are managing and Ireland’s
public waste and tackling litter.
The report is based on data received by VOICE through
numerous Access to Information on the
Environment (AIE) requests to 31 local authorities.
A total of 20 local authorities returned fully completed
answers and nine returned partially completed answers. Two local authorities did not submit answers.
During the period 2012 to 2017 almost 50,000 litter fines
were issued by Councils across the country, with an average of almost 8,300
fines issued each year.
Offences relating to general littering pollution such as
fly-tipping, depositing household waste in public bins or generally causing
litter in a public place made up two-thirds of all offences during the
five-year period examined in the report.
Almost 20 per cent of fines were issued by Dublin City
Council, with Longford issuing the highest amount of fines on a per capita
basis.
The payment of fines generated just over €3 million in
revenue for local authorities, the report states, however, the figure should
have been much higher.
On average, the report notes, the compliance rate for
payment of litter fines was just 43 per cent, equating to 21,310 fines being
paid across the country.
Kerry has the highest rate of unpaid fines – fines that are
simply unpaid and also those cancelled or disregarded by Councils on appeal – at
68 per cent.
Lost revenue from fines is estimated to be around €1 million over the five-year period for all local authority.
Clean-up costs
It is costing local authorities on average more than €1,600
per tonne of waste collected and disposed through the public waste system, the
new report reveals.
The report notes, however, that most of the data received
from local authorities does not separate out costs associated with public bin
collection, street sweepings and fly-tipping activities.
VOICE said that it wants to see local authorities to provide
more thorough data to ensure that waste is managed sustainably and cost
effectively.
Mindy O’Brien, the Coordinator of VOICE, stated: “This
10-month study has illustrated that we need a wholescale debate on the real
cost, both financial and environmental, of litter, street cleaning and street
bin management and find better methods of deterring our litter louts.
“Enforcement is not working the way it should as many litter
fines are ignored and the ones that are pursued in court are done at a loss to
the local authority,” she added.
Ms O’Brien said that there are a lot of holes in the data that
VOICE received from local authorities on the type of waste collected and how it
is managed through the public waste infrastructure.
Without this information, she added, we will not be able to
tackle public waste in the most cost-effective way.
Additionally, VOICE is calling on DCCAE to conduct a waste
characterisation study of our public waste to understand what is in our street
bins and what type of waste makes up litter strewn on our streets, beaches and
country-side.
VOICE says that this “valuable information” will be “instrumental” during the transposition of the EU Single-Use Plastic Directive that will see the cost of litter clean up and bin collections of plastic put onto the producers of such products.
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