'Covid-clearouts' blamed for rise in fly-tipping

(Above) Rubbish illegally dumped in the Rathowen area last month.

A claim that Covid-clearouts may be behind the apparent increased levels of litter and dumping in Westmeath has been made by a local authority official.

The suggestion came from council director of services, Martin Murray in response to complaints by Cllr Johnny Penrose at the most recent meeting of Westmeath County Council's Environment, Climate Action, Water and Emergency Services SPC that since the Covid outbreak, the amount of rubbish being dumped on roadsides was ‘unbelievable’.

Cllr Penrose stated that dumpers are tipping lorries as they drive on the main roads.

“It’s a serious problem we have,” he said, adding that another problem area is the bottle banks: “There’s a massive amount of rubbish left beside them,” he said as he called for investment in CCTV to counter the issue.

Responding, Mr Murray felt the county council’s response to the increased demand during the Covid crisis had been good: it had arranged with its service providers to increase capacity at bring banks and to increase the frequency of collection;

“That said I’m not saying there was not some form of dumping at bring banks,” he admitted.

“It just reflected the increased level of household activity. People were at home: they cleaned out the attics; they cleaned out the spare bedrooms; they cleaned out the sheds, and what happens when you do that, is that the quantity of waste grows, in a very short time frame – and we dealt with that as best we could, as all local authorities did.”

Mr Murray revealed that at present, CCTV cameras are monitoring some of the bring banks worst affected.

SPC chairman, Cllr Frank McDermott remarked that figures released had shown that alcohol usage had increased by 70 per cent since the Covid outbreak. He said praise was due to the council and its contractors for the work they had done to clean away refuse.