Council launch map showing public bin locations
Westmeath County Council have launched an updated and interactive Google Map showing the location of all 107 public bins around Mullingar.
It also shows the locations of bins around Athlone and Moate, and they hope to add more towns and villages to it soon.
They have asked that when people are out walking, or walking their dogs, that they plan their route around the vicinity of a public bin in a bid to cut back on litter in the town.
They follow an ‘any bag, any bin’ policy, meaning dog waste, once bagged, can be disposed of in any of the public bins.
Bins are emptied daily and street sweeping is also carried out daily.
In response to a photo of dog waste posted on the Westmeath Examiner page last week, a spokesman for Westmeath County Council said:
"It is very disappointing that people persist with littering in this way”.
“Unfortunately we experience a lot of misuse of public bins with dumping in and around them, and often they do not solve the litter problem."
Westmeath County Council's environmental awareness officer, Ruth Maxwell, has carried out a lot of work around dog fouling with her ‘Green Dog Walker’ programme, audio devices and educational programmes.
“Unfortunately more bins and cleaning up after people is not the long-term solution but we will continue to try to meet this challenge,” he said.
• Mullingar Tidy Towns have organised clean-up of Mullingar, meeting in the Market Square at 10am on Saturday January 26.
A link to the interactive map can be accessed here: