Irish Business Against Litter (IBAL) has conducted a survey of the cleanest places in Ireland in 2022.
The report conducted included 40 cities and towns throughout Ireland and analysed their cleanliness.
Naas, County Kildare, has been revealed as the cleanest place in Ireland, with its Main Street being hailed as “exceptionally well presented and maintained”.
Maynooth and Kilkenny were also given praise for their cleanliness, coming in joint second place. However, it is Waterford that has been crowned the cleanest city overall for the third consecutive year.
Ireland’s cleanest and most litter-filled areas, revealed – Waterford is the cleanest overall
Waterford city has been crowned the cleanest city in Ireland for the third year in a row, closely followed by Galway.
However, there were certain areas around Ireland that raised cause for concern. In particular, the town of Mahon in County Cork.
This was the only area in the country that caused worry over the dirty streets. The area was deemed “seriously littered”.
An Taisce, the National Trust for Ireland, reports that the area has a bad dumping problem, raising concern as dumped items include dirty nappies.
Further areas for concern – certain areas of Cork city
As well as showing concern in Mahon, the survey showed little improvement in Cork city. Cork city was reported to have a number of problematic areas, including Kennedy Quay, Carmelite Place/Western Road, and the North Ring Road.
An Taisce said, “Many sites were let down not just because of casual litter but due to the presence of dumped items.
“No let up on the dumping along this road – as well as bags of rubbish, there were larger household items, e.g, chairs, white electrical appliances. It was in a very, very poor state”.
However, despite these concerns, the overall cleanliness of Ireland as a whole has shown signs of improvement, as three-quarters of the surveyed towns and cities were deemed as clean, compared to just over 50% this time last year.
A return to pre-pandemic levels – a worry since Covid struck
Speaking on the results, IBAL spokesperson Conor Horgan said, “Cleanliness in Ireland has returned to pre-pandemic levels, which is good because Covid saw litter levels rocket across the country”.
He said this as there was a fear that Ireland “wouldn’t return back to the progress that we’d been making over the years”.
Speaking on RTÉ’s ‘Morning Ireland’, he said, “What is heartening to find is that we survey about 500 sites or 600 sites each time.
“We’re constantly calling on local authorities to address the heavily littered sites because we find them time and again the same sites never being addressed, that seems to be changing”.
