Cafe owner's bins stuffed with eight sacks of someone else's waste

LOUISE WALSH
A Meath cafe - which recycle almost all of its waste - is being forced to put padlocks on their bins after bags of clothing and rubbish were dumped into them at the weekend.
Soiled underwear and tissues, empty bottles and second hand clothes and shoes were contained in up to eight big sacks which were crammed into the green and black bins of the busy Broadway Cafe and Gift Shop in Dunboyne last Thursday night.
The bins were able to hold the huge volume of unauthorised dumping because almost all of the waste from the coffee shop is recycled.
Receipts found among the disgusting few bags searched by owner Monica Hannigan indicate that the person responsible shopped a lot in Navan.
Even more worryingly, Monica believes that her bins were deliberately targeted as she has them hidden in nearby O’Dwyer’s Pub carpark.

Initially the popular businesswoman - who is well known for her involvement in the local musical society - was left scratching her head as to why the bags of clothing and shoes were not dropped at the local St Vincent de Paul shop, only minutes away from her cafe.
However, her search on Monday morning found the more toxic elements of waste under the clothes.
“This is the first time it’s happened to me but I know a lot of people whose bins have been filled with other people’s rubbish in the middle of the night,” she said.
“I thought it was very strange first of all when we saw the clothes and the shoes as I couldn’t understand why whoever did this, couldn’t just leave everything with the St Vincent de Paul
“It was only when I got the gloves out on Monday morning and went through a few bags that I saw the other, what I’d call toxic waste. I stopped searching through them very fast.
“It wasn’t the normal household waste you’d expect. As well as the clothes and shoes, there were empty bottles of orange and water and soiled underwear and tissue.
“My bins were stuffed to the gills - and I found receipts from different places, all in Navan.”
The shop’s bins were an easy target as they were almost empty and hidden from view.

“My bins are kept in O’Dwyer’s carpark so someone would have had to have spotted they were there. They’re not visible from the road.
“In addition, my black bin is spotless because it’s seldom, if ever used. We recycle everything here.
“People think a coffee shop has a lot of wasted food but that’s not so. We only fill a five litre bin of food waste a day which only costs a few quid a week to recycle.
“I’ve been hearing from so many of stories where people who don’t fork out for their own bins - put their rubbish into someone else’s receptacle in the dead of night.
“It looks like I’m going to have to put a lock on the bins now,” she said, adding that she is planning on informing Meath County Council’s litter warden.

_{Monica Hannigan}