Top 10 Spot For Arklow As Nationwide Litter Levels Remain Unchanged

A fall in plastic bottles and cans on our streets, brought about by the Deposit Return Scheme (DRS), was not enough to reduce overall litter levels in Ireland last year.

That is the finding of business group Irish Business Against Litter (IBAL), whose latest survey of 40 towns and cities shows Arklow “cleaner than European norms”, in 10th position, up from 17th in mid-2024.

Naas was the cleanest town in the rankings, with Dublin North Inner City bottom of the pile.

The An Taisce report for Arklow stated:

A very strong result for Arklow, with seven out of the ten sites surveyed getting the top litter grade and there were no heavily littered sites.  A Clothing Bank at Arklow Leisure Centre at which dumping was found in an earlier survey has since been completely removed. Top ranking sites included the approach roads, Bridgewater Shopping Centre, Arklow Town Centre (beautifully presented and maintained) and the residential area of St. John's Villas / John Paul Avenue. 

Overall litter levels were on a par with 12 months ago.

Naas finished atop the rankings for the 3rd time in 4 years, ahead of 5-time victor Kilkenny and Monaghan town.

In all, 60% of the towns and cities surveyed were deemed ‘clean’. Galway replaced Waterford as the cleanest city, but city areas occupied all but one of the bottom 10 places in the IBAL league table, despite some improvement in Limerick and Mahon in Cork. ‘Littered’ Ballybane in Galway and Dublin City Centre deteriorated year-on-year, while Dublin North Inner City was the only area to be branded ‘seriously littered’.  

On a positive note, 2024 saw a further fall in the number of sites within cities and towns that were deemed ‘litter blackspots’, which suggests that local authorities were generally more effective in tackling urban dumping and in addressing sites that IBAL had previously highlighted.

The survey also revealed a near-50% fall in the prevalence of plastic bottles and cans in the 500+ sites monitored since the Deposit Return Scheme was introduced last year.