Environment
Litter!
By Gerry Ryder
10, Mar 2013 - 23:49

Who throws the litter on the side of the road? Young or old, males or females?


I recently gathered this bagful of rubbish (picture enclosed) from a half-mile stretch of the Pontoon Road, and I decided to examine it more closely to find out. All of this rubbish was discarded over a six-week period (since the last time I cleaned up). There are lots of soft drink bottles, a good selection of take-away detritus, four wine bottles, some beer cans and a wide variety of other odds and ends. The most amusing rubbish came in small plastic bags which contained crap from a dog. Either some dog has had some sort of colostomy, or its owner puts on a show of fastidiousness in the town, and subsequently dumps the bags.

To answer my question about the litter perps...it's everybody. When it comes to littering in Ireland, only the dogs seem to give a sh*t.

The EPA recently launched a new iPhone App, See it? Say it!, to help people to report environmental pollution in their towns and villages.

The new App makes it easy for people to report a pollution incident the moment they see it. Using the App you can now take a photograph of the pollution incident, input GPS location coordinates, add a summary description of what you want to convey and your contact details and this will automatically be sent to the relevant local authority for follow up.

This App complements the 24 hour nationwide environmental complaints phoneline - 1850 365 121 - which is already in place. So, you can now report issues such as backyard burning, flytipping, water pollution, odours and littering by using the new iPhone App or by phoning the complaints line.

You can download the App now from the iTunes App Store (search iTunes for: ‘See it Say it') or visit http://goo.gl/gOJMa. Then, if you spot environmental pollution or dumping such as the above incident:

• open the App,
• take a photograph,
• add a few simple details including a contact number and
• submit the complaint.

The app will send the complaint details to the relevant local authority and will make it easy for those investigating to locate the problem.