BULKY WASTE collected by Clare County Council over the past five years has a combined total value of approximately €50,000.
Various locations across the county have been used by the local authority in the last five years to host amnesty days. The Council have been supported by the Department of Environment, Climate and Communications with this anti-dumping initiative.
Senior engineer in the environment section of the Council, Cyril Feeney stated, “the amnesty days are advertised on our social media platforms and are well supported by the local communities”.
He explained, “the amnesty days have dealt with mattresses, bulky waste furniture and hazardous waste. In that space of time, we have collected 2,148 mattresses and 13 tonnes of bulky furniture at a cost of approximately €50,000”.
Feeney made his comments in response to a proposal by Cllr Donna McGettigan (SF) for the Council to seek funding from this Department “to have a free bulky waste amnesty at key locations once or twice per year”.
She said, “This will help alleviate the ongoing issues with illegal dumping and the effect it is having on our environment, this may also help with the cost of clean-up and would lead to a reduction of bulky waste ending up on our bonfires”.
In his response, Feeney detailed, “it is our intention to continue with this initiative annually subject to Department funding”.
Speaking at the February meeting of the County Council, Cllr McGettigan remarked that she wanted to see these amnesty days held at “key locations in towns and villages. If they were concentrated in towns and villages, it might work better,” the Shannon representative added.
“It is something the Council have done for many years,” Cllr Gerry Flynn (IND) advised while seconding the motion. Cllr Michael Begley (IND) recalled, “We’ve had this system before, the difficulty was having a location where the system was ran”.
